Send us a text Inlet Dance Theatre is a modern dance company in Cleveland, founded in 2001 by our guest, Bill Wade , a renowned dancer and choreographer who uses the power of dance to further people and explore human, societal, and environmental issues through movement. Located within the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression on West 25th Street in Cleveland, Inlet's Dance Studio is called The Estuary, reflecting the company's nature-based and sustainability themes. Inlet's mission aligns w...
Jul 08, 2025•36 min•Ep. 74
Send us a text In this episode, we head to the Rid-All Farm to speak with Keymah Durden , a co-founder of Rid-All Green Partnership . What was once a notorious dumping ground in Cleveland's "Forgotten Triangle", the farm is now one of the largest minority-owned urban farms and a nationally recognized model for urban agriculture, environmental stewardship, and resilience. In this episode, Keymah talks about how Rid-All is growing communities and changing Lives. Rid-All was originally a pest contr...
Jun 10, 2025•46 min•Ep. 73
Send us a text On Friday, April 11, over 300 high school students from across northeast Ohio gathered for the 2025 NEO Youth Climate Summit , hosted by Laurel School and Global Shapers Cleveland . The event brought students together to discuss and collaborate on solutions for climate change, sustainability, and environmental justice. The summit was kicked off with a keynote address by a young climate activist, Sage Lenier . Sage was honored by TIME Magazine as a 2023 Next Generation Leader. She ...
May 06, 2025•37 min•Ep. 72
Send us a text Happy Earth Day! In this episode, we discuss the importance of connecting kids with nature and the Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights , with Renee Boronka , Director of Conservation Education and Outreach at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy . The Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights outlines twelve fundamental nature experiences every child deserves, from breathing clean air to camping under starry skies. What began as a grant-funded project to better connect urban youth with nature...
Apr 22, 2025•29 min•Ep. 71
Send us a text Mera Cardenas is a historic preservationist working to connect people to place as the Executive Director of Canalway Partners . We are the people, and the place is the historic Towpath Trail , located within the Ohio & Erie Canalway National Heritage Area . The 100-mile Towpath Trail from Cleveland to New Philadelphia follows what once was a significant transportation artery from the mid-1800s until the railroads came. The trail was completed in 2021 when the final section was...
Mar 25, 2025•39 min•Ep. 70
Send us a text Aidan Meany is a young clothing entrepreneur defining a new era of apparel. His team at Found Surface uses 21st-century technology and traditional, natural fibers to produce eco-friendly clothing for companies looking for ethically and thoughtfully produced garments. His new factory in Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood is one of the first in the nation to use digital knitting machines to make clothing that is plastic-free, waste-free, and guilt-free. Aidan found his place in...
Feb 20, 2025•45 min•Ep. 69
Send us a text In our first episode of 2025, we discuss sports and sustainability with Danielle Doza , the Cleveland Cavaliers ' Vice President of Sustainability and Environmental Services. As the first executive-level professional in the NBA, Danielle shares how the CAVS organization integrates award-winning eco-friendly practices in fresh and exciting new ways and the collaborative spirit driving sustainability within sports organizations. Join us as Danielle speaks about her dream job and key...
Jan 21, 2025•39 min•Ep. 68
Send us a text 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 mission to educate, empower, and cultivate health through fresh foo...
Dec 19, 2024•35 min•Ep. 67
Send us a text 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 people shared news of their work, sought collaborators and promoted opportunities. ...
Nov 21, 2024•55 min•Ep. 66
Send us a text 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 expose the vast problem of plastic pollution present in our Great Lake...
Nov 07, 2024•36 min•Ep. 65
Send us a text 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 Shaker Square and took us through the Shaker, Buckeye, and Mount...
Oct 15, 2024•20 min•Ep. 64
Send us a text 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 competitive rates and substantial savings to residents in member com...
Sep 24, 2024•36 min•Ep. 63
Send us a text 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. This organization truly makes a difference, one person at a time...
Sep 04, 2024•10 min•Ep. 62
Send us a text "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 this episode, we speak with its founder and executive director, Maria Paparella. Cha...
Sep 04, 2024•34 min•Ep. 62
Send us a text 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 outdoor environments. Through her work at LAND Studio , Maci shares how pu...
Aug 20, 2024•29 min•Ep. 61
Send us a text 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 for customer shipment. This bulky, lightweight, and rigid foam p...
Aug 06, 2024•34 min•Ep. 60
Send us a text 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 Pathfinder Committee, we speak about finding adventure and friendship on the...
Jul 16, 2024•26 min•Ep. 59
Send us a text 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 eliminating a bottleneck in local tree planting efforts - the need for seeds. The Hol...
Jun 18, 2024•27 min•Ep. 58
Send us a text 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 Metroparks , the local nonprofit SYATT , and the Trust for Public Land ...
Jun 04, 2024•43 min•Ep. 57
Send us a text 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 to encourage more plant-based eating. This year's festival features an...
May 21, 2024•28 min•Ep. 56
Send us a text 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, humanitarian-focused "mycotecture" can grow buildings on and...
May 07, 2024•42 min•Ep. 55
Send us a text 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 from Rivergate Park up to Cleveland-Cliffs Steelyard and back....
Apr 16, 2024•39 min•Ep. 54
Send us a text 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 space clean-ups, recycling drives, plastics reduction campaigns, eco fai...
Apr 02, 2024•30 min•Ep. 53
Send us a text 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 tiered pricing structure. We first spoke with Patrick and Michae...
Mar 19, 2024•38 min•Ep. 52
Send us a text 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 working towards this goal - Jess Boeke , the co-founder of Rust Belt Fibers...
Mar 05, 2024•41 min•Ep. 51
Send us a text 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 Cente r 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 Director of Natural Resources for Cleveland Metroparks, Jennifer Grieser , abou...
Feb 20, 2024•36 min•Ep. 50
Send us a text 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 Communications Director John Gonzalez about how he uses humor, humanity,...
Feb 06, 2024•46 min•Ep. 49
Send us a text Meet Victoria Avi , owner of Venture Forward Strategies . Victoria has many rich stories and insights from her 17-year sustainability career and her personal life. Victoria immigrated to Cleveland from Azerbaijan when she was just 16 and navigated language, high school, and finally college, where she found her passions for graphic design and the environment. What does it take to weave a life that interlaces a personal immigration story with a genuine commitment to sustainability? ...
Jan 16, 2024•39 min•Ep. 48
Send us a text On December 21, 2021, Greg and I launched the first episode of Eco Speaks CLE to elevate and connect the greater Cleveland environmental community by speaking with those doing inspiring and impactful work. Forty-seven episodes later, as we celebrate two years of Eco Speaks CLE, we are grateful to each guest and each listener. You have become our friends. We hope this first episode of 2024 and its compilation of clips from the past two years will help you find new ways to stay conn...
Jan 02, 2024•24 min•Ep. 47
Send us a text Medwish International in Cleveland, Ohio, has been making a world of difference since 1993 by recovering, repurposing, and redistributing surplus medical supplies around the globe. This urgently needed humanitarian aid also helps the environment by keeping life-saving resources out of landfills. In this episode, we speak with Executive Director Britta Latz about how Medwish has been bridging the gap between surplus and scarcity for 30 years with the support of an army of volunteer...
Dec 05, 2023•31 min•Ep. 46
