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Decision making for the Circular Economy: Life Cycle Assessment

Feb 12, 2018

Decision making for the Circular Economy: Life Cycle Assessment

Post by Shauhrat Chopra (Assistant Professor, City University of Hong Kong, formerly a Post-Doctoral Researcher at University of Illinois Chicago) and Weslynne Ashton (Associate Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology Stuart School of Business). Here, Shauhrat and Weslynne present a Life-Cycle Assessments of bread baking, considering wood versus Plant Chicago biobricks as fuel. In a facility-scale industrial symbiosis system like The Plant, the ideal is for one business t

Thinking Circular, with Chemistry

Jan 18, 2018

Thinking Circular, with Chemistry

Post by John Mulrow, Civil Engineering PhD Candidate at University of Illinois at Chicago. This post describes a chemistry example I use to explain the fundamentals of material and energy flow for sustainability courses at UIC. A primary task of circular economists is the tracking of material and energy use throughout the production process. One of the simplest ways of doing this is to turn our analysis into a chemical equation. Burning wood to heat the bread oven at Pleasant

What Does it Mean to “Scale” Reuse?

Jan 6, 2018

What Does it Mean to “Scale” Reuse?

What does it mean to “scale” reuse? What are the metrics for success? These were two questions posed to a group of building material reuse experts as part of the Wa$ted Market Convenings, organized by non-profit Archeworks and circular economy organizer Nicolette Stosur-Bassett. The seminar on Scale was held at Great Lakes Yard (pictured above!). I sat on the panel, not as a reuse expert but as an academic thinking about how the reuse, recycling and circular economy efforts c

Measuring Food, Energy and Water Flows at The Plant

Oct 26, 2017

Measuring Food, Energy and Water Flows at The Plant

Article by Eva Chancé, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) (This research was led by Eva in partnership with Plant Chicago and Research Steering Committee members from Illinois Institute of Technology and University of Illinois Chicago) In this paper entitled “The Plant – an experiment in urban food sustainability” and published recently in the journal Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, we present the concept of urban food production and oppor

Introducing Plant Chicago’s Research Steering Committee

Sep 26, 2017

Introducing Plant Chicago’s Research Steering Committee

Plant Chicago’s Research Steering Committee (RSC) met this month to discuss Plant Chicago’s research agenda. Ideas for the year ahead include testing of mushroom-growing substrates, improving material flow measurements at The Plant, testing circular economy business models, and creating a Plant “toolkit” for similar projects around the world. Plant Chicago has been working with academic communities since the earliest days of operation and experimentation at The Plant. The ear