Grid spoke in October with Samantha Wittchen, director of programs and operations at Circular Philadelphia, which she cofounded (with Grid’s Nic Esposito) in June 2021. Circular Philadelphia aims to drive the growth of a thriving circular economy in Greater Philadelphia through advocacy, education, infrastructure development and collaboration. The following interview has been edited for length
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One behemoth of a building in Eastwick looms large, both literally and in discussions about food recovery in Philadelphia. At 700,000 square feet — about 12 football fields — the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market (PWPM) is the largest refrigerated structure in the world. Eighteen of the largest produce vendors in the Mid-Atlantic share warehouse space
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At its height, it reached three feet. The color of chocolate milk, the water flooded The Tricycle Shop’s first-floor retail and café space, submerging bistro tables and balance bikes, buoying trash cans and stacks of paper cups, lapping at the midsections of mannequins sporting branded jerseys. Hurricane Ida’s September 2021 rampage through the Philadelphia region
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The “big story of solar,”according to Micah Gold-Markel, is not about slashing carbon footprints or lowering energy bills. “Yes, people can save money,” concedes the founder of Solar States LLC. “Yes, they can save the planet, but really they can do the most good because they’re saving their communities with good-paying jobs.” Inspired by the
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To Greg Trainor, executive director of Philly Reclaim, deconstruction is a no-brainer. An environmentally-friendlier alternative to demolition, deconstruction diverts building materials from the landfill and enables, through reuse, preservation of the embodied energy therein. And because systematically dismantling a building is more labor-intensive than leveling it with an excavator or a wrecking ball, deconstruction promises
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Before #vanlife became a hashtag, or “Nomadland” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Kirsty Halliday faced niggling doubts about her path forward. Sitting in her windowless office at the (since shuttered) construction firm Greensaw Design & Build, she wondered, “What am I doing?” At night, in her LEED Platinum apartment in Fishtown, the Scottish
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Feast jewelry’s Adrienne Manno doesn’t upcycle because it’s trendy or because she’s on some sustainability soapbox. Manno describes the reclaim-and-repurpose aspect of her jewelry making as an organic outgrowth of incorrigible collecting. On her once-frequent travels, Manno would spot and acquire a piece here, an element there, a 1980s faux horn belt at a London
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Feast Jewelry’s Adrienne Manno doesn’t upcycle because it’s trendy. Or because she’s on some sustainability soapbox. Manno describes the reclaim-and-repurpose aspect of her jewelry making as an organic outgrowth of incorrigible collecting. On her used-to-be-frequent travels, Manno would spot and acquire a piece here, an element there—a 1980s faux horn belt at a London flea
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