ECO SPEAKS CLE

ECO SPEAKS CLE

ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase the impactful work shaping Cleveland's environmental future in a podcast that speaks to sustainability newcomers and masters alike.

Episodes

December 19, 2024 35 mins

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Join us as we wrap up 2024 with community leader and food sovereignty advocate Sara Continenza. Sara is the founder and executive director of Food Strong, a non-profit connecting kids with food since 2016. Sara and her staff work with the Cleveland Municipal School District and other inner-city schools to provide hands-on learning experiences in gardening, nutrition, and entrepreneurship. Recently, Food Strong's ...

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Eco Meet CLE is a gathering of Cleveland's environmental community, organized by the Eco Speaks CLE podcast and friends, to share a beer, have fun, and connect the people and the threads of the exciting work happening in our region. We recorded this episode during our seventh Eco Meet held recently at our favorite watering hole, Great Lakes Brewing Company. This evening featured an "open mic" where peop...

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In this episode, Cleveland filmmaker Chris Langer speaks with us speak about his new documentary, Ripples of Plastic, which premiered this year at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and locally at the Chagrin Falls Documentary Film Fest. Chris is a director, producer, and cinematographer and owns Wonderhouse Films in Cleveland. Ripples of Plastic is Chris's first documentary film, which he began during COVID to ex...

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If you need a reason to love Mondays, Slow Roll Cleveland is it. In this episode, Greg and I join Slow Roll Cleveland and several hundred other cyclists for a leisurely-paced bike parade through our urban streets. Slow Roll Cleveland hosts these ten-mile Monday evening rides during warmer months to highlight Cleveland neighborhoods and bring joy and community to riders and residents alike. Our slow roll took off from ...

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Are you curious about making smarter, greener choices for your electricity supply? In this episode, we speak with Jennifer McMillin with the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council (SOPEC).  Jenn is SOPEC's Regional Director for Northeast Ohio and provides tips and insights for choosing a 100% renewable energy supplier for your electricity needs. SOPEC is a leader in community choice aggregation in Ohio, providing...

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"Adulting' is hard, but it's exponentially harder if you are 18 years old and aging out of foster care, alone and without a support system. Here in Cleveland, there's an organization helping to ease the transition by providing donated furniture and household goods to young people who have graduated from foster care and moved into a place of their own. That organization is called Chair-ity, and in t...

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September 4, 2024 10 mins

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In this bonus to our conversation with Maria Paparella, Maria shares a personal story of one of the young adults she deeply connected with through her organization Chair-ity. This young adult faced several challenges as she aged out of the foster care system and started life on her own. But with her perseverance, strength, intelligence, and support from Maria, she has become one of the many Chair-ity success stories. ...

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August 20, 2024 29 mins

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Meet our fellow Cleveland podcaster, Maci Nelson. Maci is a landscape architect, the creator of The Land+Scape Nerd podcast, and a project manager for LAND Studio, a non-profit that connects communities through art and public spaces. In this episode, Maci shares what it's like to design for urban outdoor spaces and the importance of relying on residents' voices to drive the creation of vibrant, inclusive out...

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Jeff McNaught owns Edgewater Surf, a surf shop in Rocky River, where he sells a variety of new and used paddleboards, surfboards, and windsurfing gear. The shop also serves as an informal community hub for styrofoam™ recycling. Jeff started this program to provide a local recycling option for the bulky EPS (expanded polystyrene) found inside paddleboards and encasing appliances, TVs, computers, and other large items f...

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For this episode, I hit the trails with The Cleveland Hiking Club to discover what drives this all-volunteer-run organization with over 1,200 members. The answer? Cool people who are passionate about encouraging and promoting outdoor recreation and making it accessible to anyone who wants to join in. In my interview with the club's Community Engagement Coordinator, Kara Girvin, and David Schiraldi of the Pathfind...

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Holden Forest & Gardens is seeding Ohio's forested future through the Holden Seed Bank at the Holden Arboretum, which will soon celebrate its first anniversary. In this episode, we speak with Seed Bank Manager Kim Lessman about how this "restoration" seed bank works, how she became its manager, and how her work forms the core of new climate-fighting reforestation efforts across the region by elimina...

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In this episode, we share the recording from our recent May networking event at Great Lakes Brewing Company. This event featured a discussion about greenspace with three local leaders working on expanding greenspace in our urban core and increasing access and opportunities to experience nature through outdoor recreation, especially for our historically underserved communities. Our three speakers from Cleveland Metropa...

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In this episode, Sunny Simon, President of The Cleveland Vegan Society, joins us to talk about veganism and VegFest 2024, coming to Cleveland's Huntington Convention Center on Saturday, June 22. It's the largest Vegan festival in the Midwest, and it will be delicious, fun, and informative for vegans and non-vegans alike. The Cleveland Vegan Society created VegFest over 12 years ago to celebrate veganism and ...

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Can you build a house with mushrooms? You can if you are Chris Maurer, an architect, a mycologist, and a visionary. Chris is the Principal Architect at Redhouse Studio, an architecture firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. Chris and his partners are working to revolutionize how we house ourselves, not with bricks and mortar but with bio-bricks, a carbon-sequestering fusion of fungi mycelium and plant waste. This regenerative...

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Jim Ridge is the founder and executive director of Share the River, a non-profit that promotes Cleveland as a waterfront city and sharing everything that makes it a vibrant and engaging space for residents and visitors. In this episode, Jim talks about his upcoming Blazing Paddles Paddlefest on June 22, where hundreds of recreational paddlers and racers will paddle the commercial shipping section of the Cuyahoga River...

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In this episode, we celebrate Earth Month and the power of local environmental action with the Cleveland Heights Green Team, its co-founder Catalina Wagers, and volunteer Suzanne Zilber. The  Cleveland Heights Green Team was founded in 2021 and is very active, with over 300 volunteers. They have a full calendar of events planned for Earth Month, and during the rest of the year, they are busy organizing green spac...
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In this episode, we welcome returning guests Patrick Kearns with Re:Source Cleveland (formerly Refugee Response) and Michael Bartunek with Ohio City Farm to update us on the exciting developments at Ohio City Farm and with its operator, Re:Source Cleveland. Rachel Ramos, who manages CSA sales for the farm, also joins us to tell us about the diverse array of fresh produce available in the 2024 CSA program and the new t...

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In this episode, we bring you the conversation from Eco Meet CLE, a Cleveland sustainability event on February 20 featuring local innovators reinventing northeast Ohio textile production. Rather than today's exploitive and resource-intensive system, we can grow a regional, circular system that fosters economic integrity, ecological stewardship, and connection to people and place. Listen and hear from those workin...

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Cleveland Metroparks has always been a preserver and protector of our valleys and the waters that run through them. In 2013, it opened the Watershed Stewardship Center in Parma's West Creek Reservation with a mission to enhance and protect our urban watersheds through scientific discovery, education, and sustainable actions. In this episode, we speak with the center's manager, Bethany Majeski, and the Direct...

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Northeast Ohio can be proud of its sewer district, not only for the skill with which it manages our wastewater and protects our water resources but also for the skill with which it connects with the public, especially its Twitter followers. How did the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District amass more than 60,000 die-hard Twitter followers here in Cleveland and across the globe? In this episode, we speak with Communic...

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