How deserted places find a second life

Summary

TED Radio Hour: How Deserted Places Find a Second Life

Host: Anoush Zomorodi
Release Date: August 15, 2025
Podcast: TED Radio Hour by NPR

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Introduction to Abandoned Places

Anoush Zomorodi sets the stage for the episode by describing the haunting remnants of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone. She paints a vivid picture of abandoned homes where personal items like shoes, books, and toys remain untouched, offering a glimpse into the lives abruptly interrupted by the nuclear disaster four decades ago. This desolate area, though devoid of human life, has become a sanctuary for wildlife, illustrating nature’s resilience.

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Chernobyl’s Thriving Wildlife: The Gray Wolves

Speakers: Kara Love (Integrative Biologist) and Shane Campbell Staton (Evolutionary Biologist)

Key Discussion Points:

• Wildlife Flourishing Amid Radiation: Kara Love discusses the unexpected proliferation of animals such as Eurasian bison, moose, and Eurasian lynx within the exclusion zone. Specifically, the focus is on how gray wolves have adapted to survive in an environment with high radiation levels.

  “These wolves have been Thriving here despite constant and intense exposure to radiation.”
  — Kara Love, 05:00

• Genetic Adaptations: Shane Campbell Staton delves into the genetic changes observed in Chernobyl’s wolf population. Over seven to eight generations, these wolves have been exposed to chronic radiation, prompting natural selection to favor mutations that may confer resistance to cancer.

  “The fastest changing regions of the Chernobyl wolf genome occur in and around genes that we know are involved in cancer or in the mammalian antitumor immune response.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 08:49

• Collaborative Research: The partnership between Kara and Shane exemplifies interdisciplinary research, combining integrative biology with evolutionary studies to uncover how species adapt to extreme conditions.

  “I think that has made this collaboration so incredible.”
  — Kara Love, 04:08

Insights:

• Rapid Evolution: The gray wolves in Chernobyl demonstrate that evolution can occur swiftly in response to intense environmental pressures, challenging Darwin’s notion of gradual change.

  “Evolution is rapidly altering species around our planet in order to live alongside us.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 07:31

• Implications for Human Health: Understanding the genetic resilience of these wolves could lead to breakthroughs in cancer research, potentially inspiring new therapeutic approaches for humans.

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Reshaping Urban Economies: From Waste to Circularity

Speaker: Gary Cooper (CEO and Co-founder of Reaply)

Key Discussion Points:

• Wasteful Practices in Laboratories: Gary Cooper recounts his experience in a research lab where vast amounts of resources were wasted due to inefficiencies in inventory management. This observation sparked his passion for reducing waste on a larger scale.

  “We have all these items that end up in a landfill. They don't deserve them.”
  — Gary Cooper, 25:37

• Founding Reaply: Cooper founded Reaply to create a digital platform that connects organizations for the reuse and redistribution of materials. By cataloging items like building materials, IT equipment, and furniture, Reaply facilitates a circular economy.

  “Reaply helps organizations reuse things like building materials and IT and industrial equipment and furniture.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 25:20

• Circular vs. Linear Economy: The linear economy, characterized by taking resources, using them, and discarding them, contributes to 45% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reaply aims to shift this paradigm by promoting reuse and reducing the need for new manufacturing.

  “45% of all global greenhouse gas emissions is because of what we call a linear economy.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 23:26

• Pilot Project in San Francisco: Reaply is actively working with the city of San Francisco as a pilot project to demonstrate the viability of a circular economy at a municipal level. The project has successfully diverted significant amounts of waste from landfills while recapturing value for various organizations.

  “In San Francisco we have launched and it's exactly all of these things are operating in San Francisco.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 30:14

Insights:

• Economic and Environmental Benefits: Transitioning to a circular economy not only reduces carbon emissions but also creates green jobs and fosters sustainable business practices.

  “A circular economy can create millions actually green jobs.”
  — Shane Campbell Staton, 33:05

• Scalability: For widespread adoption, cities must build digital and operational infrastructures that support reuse and recycling, coupled with incentives to encourage participation.

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Revitalizing Detroit: Transforming Abandoned Lots into Green Spaces

Speaker: Anika Goss (CEO of Detroit Future City)
Guest: Katrina Watkins (CEO of Bailey Park Neighborhood Development Corporation)

Key Discussion Points:

• Economic Decline and Vacant Land: Detroit, once a thriving industrial hub, has experienced severe population loss, leading to widespread abandonment and environmental contamination. The city now faces 19 square miles of vacant land, posing significant challenges for infrastructure and community health.

  “All of those industrial sites stand vacant and abandoned. We now have about 19 square miles of vacant land in Detroit.”
  — Anika Goss, 38:45

• Resilient Neighborhood Model: Anika Goss outlines Detroit Future City's strategy to revitalize neighborhoods through planting urban forests, sustainable gardens, and creating green spaces that support biodiversity and improve environmental quality.

  “Planting sustainable gardens alongside food gardens is critically important.”
  — Anika Goss, 40:48

• Community Engagement: Katrina Watkins shares her personal journey of transforming abandoned lots into vibrant community spaces, emphasizing the importance of involving residents in the design and maintenance of these projects.

  “We really have to bring back the sense of community and connectivity.”
  — Katrina Watkins, 43:48

• Impactful Projects: Over 55 vacant lots have been converted into green spaces featuring trees, gardens, fire pits, and stages, making neighborhoods safer and more aesthetically pleasing while mitigating climate impacts like flooding.

  “We've spent well over a million dollars to help residents envision what they can do with these vacant lots.”
  — Anoush Zomorodi, 42:17

Insights:

• Social and Environmental Revitalization: Transforming abandoned spaces not only beautifies the city but also enhances community resilience against climate change and fosters social cohesion.

  “Tree roots anchor the soil, helping to protect their homes from climate events like massive floods.”
  — Katrina Watkins, 44:54

• Long-term Vision: Anika envisions a Detroit with thriving green spaces and renewed communities, anticipating significant progress within five years.

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Polar Bears and Human Coexistence Amid Climate Change

Speaker: Alyssa McCall (Director of Conservation Outreach, Polar Bears International)

Key Discussion Points:

• Impact of Climate Change: Alyssa McCall explains how melting sea ice forces polar bears to traverse land in search of food, increasing encounters with humans and leading to potential conflicts.

  “Polar bears are fat, white, hairy canaries in the coal mine, warning us to act now.”
  — Alyssa McCall, 52:53

• Dietary Challenges: With their primary food source (seals) becoming scarce, polar bears turn to human garbage as an alternative, which poses health risks and heightens safety concerns for both bears and people.

• Conservation Efforts in Churchill: The town of Churchill, Manitoba, has implemented effective waste management strategies by moving garbage dumps indoors and installing bear-resistant bins to prevent bears from scavenging.

  “Churchill did the smart thing and they've just moved their garbage dump indoors.”
  — Alyssa McCall, 50:20

• Innovative Solutions: Collaborations with companies like 3M aim to develop better tracking methods for polar bears to monitor their movements and reduce negative interactions with humans.

  “These bur on fur tags could be a conservation game changer.”
  — Alyssa McCall, 51:21

• Education and Prevention: Alyssa emphasizes the importance of educating people about bear awareness and proactive measures to secure food and deter bears from approaching human habitats.

  “If you are going into bear country, please get bear aware, stay together, secure your snacks.”
  — Alyssa McCall, 51:41

Insights:

• Coexistence Strategies: Effective waste management and innovative tracking technologies are critical in minimizing human-polar bear conflicts.

  “Coexistence is the only option. Let's make it safe for all.”
  — Alyssa McCall, 51:41

• Urgent Climate Action: Protecting polar bears hinges on global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change, underscoring their role as indicators of environmental health.

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Conclusion

The episode weaves together stories of abandoned places and the remarkable ways they find new life, whether through the resilience of wildlife in Chernobyl, the transformation of urban economies, the revitalization of Detroit’s communities, or the coexistence of polar bears and humans amid climate upheaval. Each narrative underscores the themes of adaptation, sustainability, and the profound impact of human actions on the environment.

Notable Quotes:

• “Ideas worth spreading.” — Anoush Zomorodi (01:07)
• “Life is a paradox. It's simultaneously incredibly fragile and relentlessly resilient.” — Shane Campbell Staton (18:38)

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Final Thoughts

This episode highlights the interconnectedness of ecosystems, economies, and communities, demonstrating that with creativity and collaboration, even the most deserted places can find a second life. It calls listeners to reflect on their role in shaping a sustainable future and the potential for positive change when innovative solutions are embraced.

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For more insights and full talks from the guests featured in this episode, visit Ted.com.

Transcript

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This message comes from Raymond James, a firm focused on transforming lives, businesses and communities through tailored wealth management, banking and capital markets solutions. [e-mail] Are you that friend, the one who's constantly recommending podcast episodes to anyone who will listen? Well, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter and nerd out with us. You'll get fresh podcast recommendations every week handpicked by the people that live for this stuff. [e-mail] podclub. You'll also find the link in the description for this episode. See you there. This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Delivered at TED Conferences to bring about the future we want to see around the world to understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're going to find challenge you.

[Kara Love]

We truly have to ask ourselves, like.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Why is it noteworthy and even change you?

[Anoush Zamarodi]

I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading From TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. Today on the show Abandoned Places, I remember walking through some vill. You look through the windows and there are still shoes near the door. There's still books next to the bed. There's still a child's toy on the floor. There's so many remnants of the lives that were left on very short notice. For nearly four decades, ever since the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, the surrounding 30 kilometer radius known as the exclusion zone, has mostly been empty of human life. It's kind of this odd mixture of very surreal abandoned homes and abandoned lives. But there are other inhabitants. You keep going. And then in this one house that is very vivid to me, I remember a nest of a family of four that had made residence in the front porch of one of these houses. And it was very obvious that while humans at one time, decades ago lived in this place, now the boar were living in this same structure, creating this place for their family and to safely bed at night. This is Kara Love. She's an integrative biologist and was visiting Chernobyl regularly to study the animals that are flourishing there. So if you're walking through the zone, you'll probably see Eurasian bison, Eurasian moose, all sorts of bird life. And, you know, we got really lucky one year and actually saw two Eurasian lynx just driving around to our wolf site. Wolf sites. Kara and her colleagues are specifically researching the area's apex predator, the gray wolf. These wolves have been Thriving here despite constant and intense exposure to radiation. Some of the wolves are exposed to upwards of, like, three chest X rays a day worth of radiation per individual on the most extreme, but still pretty significant for the long term, chronic exposure over an entire lifetime. You know, I had always had questions of what impacts the radiation might have on population dynamics, and Shane was just a perfect collaborator to bring on to add that element of evolution and natural selection and ask these questions together.

[Kara Love]

And I think that has made this collaboration so incredible.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Shane Campbell Staton is an evolutionary biologist, and in 2019, Kara recruited him to help answer a big how have these wolves genetically adapted to survive all this radiation?

[Kara Love]

Because we know that the wolves in Chernobyl have been there at this point for about seven or eight generations. So they've been exposed their entire lives to this novel pressure. And by understanding how natural selection has gone about molding organisms to still be able to survive and reproduce, by studying that process, it may lead us to new insights.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Shane has spent his entire career studying how species evolve to adapt to human behavior, including in Chernobyl, which is unlike anything he's ever seen before.

[Kara Love]

A pup that's born in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. From day one, it's being exposed to radiation from the environment. And that pup will live half a decade or more and each day be continually exposed to that radiation. On top of that, these wolves, they're getting another dose of radiation from each meal that they eat in a concentrated dose because they're apex predators. So they're eating European bison that then ate grass and other vegetation that was infused with radiation. And we know that radiation causes lots of damage to the mammalian body.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but are some of these wolves living with cancer?

[Kara Love]

So that is one thing that we're exploring right now. What we do know is that when you look at their blood and you look at the immune profiles of their blood, they show patterns that you would expect from a person with cancer. You know, so now all of a sudden, if you're interested in that specific question, how would a mammalian genome change in order to become more resistant or resilient to cancer? That's the kind of stage that you would want to set up in order to understand that. And as tragic, absolutely tragic, as the Chernobyl incident was, we do have an opportunity to learn something of potentially incredible value from the aftermath of it.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

From a tragic event to a rare opportunity when people move on. There is loss, but there is also a chance for renewal if we make the most of what gets Left behind on this episode, stories about abandoned places and ideas for transforming them into resilient economies, cities, and even a thriving species. So back to evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell Staton. He says the gray wolf's ability to withstand so much radiation is just one example of evolution unfolding at a breakneck pace. Here he is on the TED stage.

[Kara Love]

Now, when Charles Darwin. My man, Chuck D. When he first proposed this theory, when he first proposed the theory of evolution, he imagined it as this slow, gradual process that played out over thousands or millions of years. But now, in the face of all the different changes that we are making to the planet, we're finding that evolution is rapidly altering species around our planet in order to live alongside us. Many of these stories of rapid evolution are sad, but some also offer us hope for our own future on this planet. In nature's struggle to deal with all the nonsense that we're throwing at her in all these different ways, some of those solutions may lead us to novel insights that may help our bodies deal with things that we currently struggle with that will allow us to survive all the different changes that we're making on this planet.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

So, Shane, the novel insights you're talking about Here you are looking into what is happening to these wolves genes and if they've evolved to resist cancer, what have you found?

[Kara Love]

Okay, yes. So when we sequenced the genomes of the wolves in Chernobyl, we compared them to wolves, a wolf population right outside of the exclusion zone in Belarus, and also the wolf population in Yellowstone, which is really far away. So we have these three populations, and the question was, like, if there's something special happening in Chernobyl, then whatever genes may help some individuals better deal with cancer than others. The hypothesis is that those regions should be changing in Chernobyl and only Chernobyl at a very fast rate. And we identified those patterns and identify those genes, and then you look at the function of those genes, and they're all related to some part of. To some aspect of cancer biology. And most of those genes have some known function in immunity or in the antitumor immune response or in immune phenotypes. Now, we know a lot about the genes and mutations that are responsible for many cancers or make an individual more predisposed to getting cancer. We know a lot less about potential genetic mutations or variation that may make an individual more resistant or more resilient to cancer. But perhaps nature has already found this solution. And one of the things that our data are showing us is that the fastest changing regions of the Chernobyl wolf genome occur in and around genes that we know are involved in cancer or in the mammalian antitumor immune response. We're now working with biomedical companies and cancer biologists to understand the physiological impacts of these mutations, with the hope that at least some of these changes may lead us to novel therapeutics that might result in new treatments for cancer in humans.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Okay, so let me see if I understand. The wolf genome in Chernobyl is mutating like crazy, and the parts of the genome that are mutating the fastest are the ones that show some kind of immunity to cancer. So is it like whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger?

[Kara Love]

So evolution and adaptation, they're not planning on anything. It's a reactive process. So you get thrown some kind of a curveball, and whatever you have in hand is what you have to deal with it. And if you can come up with a solution that makes you slightly better, you know, then selection will run with it. In this case, the most likely scenario is that within Chernobyl, there's some degree of standing variation in these genes that affect the way that they interact with cancer formation or cancer proliferation or metastasis. And some of those mutations are better at dealing with those things than others. In this particular environment, exposed to this novel pressure and extreme pressure, somehow we see that the ability to deal with something biologically that maybe no other organism is able to deal with in the same way. We don't know enough yet to really understand, but it's clear that something special is happening.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Shane and his colleague Kara Love are hoping to get more data from the wolves. But the war in Ukraine has kept their teams from spending more time in the region and learning more about what the implications could be for humans Someday, hopefully when we're able to gain access or when my colleagues in Belarus are able to go back into the zone again, we'll be able to really fine tune that question a bit more. But unfortunately, it's still a question yet to be fully answered. When we come back, from wolves to elephants, more with evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell Staton about how humans are speeding up evolution and how nature is responding. I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio hour from npr. Stay with. This message comes from Leesa. Leesa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality. And each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. Plus, they back it all up with free shipping, easy returns, and a 100 night sleep trial. Visit Leesa.com for 25% off mattresses. Plus get an extra $50 off with the promo code Free Radio Hour. That's L e e s a.com promo code radio Hour Support for this podcast and the following message come from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Raise a glass today and you'll taste more than just beer. You'll taste a trailblazing spirit. You'll taste pure ingredients, sustainable brewing and a commitment to community. And you'll taste a world of flavor. From the legendary pale ale to the citrusy and smooth hazy little thing. It's flavor that takes time, so you can make the most of yours. See for yourself where fine beer is sold. Sierra Nevada Taste what matters. Please drink responsibly. This message comes from Cook Unity. Enjoy high quality culinary masterpieces for a fraction of restaurant takeout prices. Subscriptions start as low as $11ameal. Skip deliveries. Pause or cancel anytime. Get what you're craving. Try fresh, great tasting meal delivery made by your favorite celebrity chefs. Go to cookunity.com radio or enter code Radio before checkout for free. Premium Meals for life terms and conditions apply. Go to cookunity.com for details.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

This message comes from Capital One with.

[Kara Love]

The Venture X card. Earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy. Plus get premium benefits at a collection.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Of hotels when booking through Capital One Travel.

[Kara Love]

What's in your wallet?

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Terms apply [e-mail].

[Anoush Zamarodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and on the show today, Abandoned Places, and we were just talking to evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell Staton about how animals can adapt when humans radically change their natural habitat.

[Kara Love]

The one pretty much universal thing about humans is we don't know how to do anything a little bit. So whatever we do, we do to an absurd degree, which means that we're changing environments very quickly to an absurd degree in all of these different dimensions. And that rapid environmental change, if it affects the ability of the organisms that live in an environment to survive, function and reproduce, that necessitates a pace of evolutionary change that can track the environment or, you know, you risk extinction.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Shane has also been studying how some African elephants have adapted in response to poaching. Here he is again on the TED stage.

[Kara Love]

In Mozambique, there was a Civil War from 1977 to 1992. During this time in Gorongosa national park, elephants in particular were reduced by 90% because of the ivory trade being targeted for their trademark tusks. Now, under most circumstances, African elephants have tusks, but there is a small number of females that carry a gene that prevents them from growing their tusks. But after the Mozambican civil war, one half of the surviving females, completely tuskless. Now, during a time where individuals are being hunted specifically for a trait, not having that trait puts you at a decided advantage in your ability to survive. Those surviving females then went on and passed that gene on to many of their daughters. That turnover of genes across generations, that is rapid evolution. In our short time on this planet, we have trimmed, trained, and reshuffled the tree of life at breakneck speed. Now, I've dedicated my life to trying to understand the lasting biological impacts of our human footprint. One of the things that I've learned along the way is that life is a paradox. It's simultaneously incredibly fragile and relentlessly resilient.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

One of the things you say in your talk, this line really just stuck with me, which is that life is incredibly fragile, yet also simultaneously incredibly resilient.

[Kara Love]

Yeah. So, you know, we are just too much for most species to handle. And you see that fragility in, you know, the long list of extinctions that came along with the rise of humans. You know, so in that case, it's like life is a paradox, right? It is fragile and it needs to be cared for. But at the same time, it does find all of these imaginative, innovative, completely surprising, quirky, weird ways to eke through, you know, when need be. I think it's easy to, you know, to see hope in these stories, and I think that's actually a good thing. But I think it is a mistake and shortsighted to then sort of shirk off responsibility. The world is gonna be from now on what we make it. The story isn't over. And right now, we are the drivers of that story.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

That was Princeton professor and evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell Staton. He's also the host of a PBS documentary series called Human Footpr. You can see his full [e-mail] Many thanks to his colleague, integrative biologist Kara Love. On the show today, abandoned places, or in this case, abandoned stuff.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

So imagine a lab looking like a corridor of a hospital. So very sterile, very white. And amongst that corridor, there's going to be lots of freezer systems.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This is Gary Cooper. In 2008, Gary was at Northwestern University working in a research lab on a drug discovery program. And to do that work, Gary and his colleagues filled the banks and rows of freezers with all kinds of supplies.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

We would say have antibodies, probes that attach a recognized proteins all the way to buffer systems, thousands of those things.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

And because you can't just buy a single antibody or a few enzymes. They bought them in bulk.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

And then you so called aliquot it out. So you kind of make separate vials of that. And so, and then you stick those aliquots in a freezer.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Aliquot is allocate in lab speak, divided up for different uses. And while some of the enzymes and proteins would get used to, others would be put into storage and forgotten about.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

You leave the lab and no one knows that they're there. They're just these tubes. What are these tubes? They're just marked alpha. No one even knows what these tubes are. And meanwhile, literally someone probably in your same floor is trying to buy that same aliquot or try to getting an aliquot or trying to get a whole bottle of that antibody or that restriction enzyme or that buffer system. And so they're buying that new with literally the refrigerator across the hallway has what they're looking for, but because they don't know it's there, you have this double waste problem.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This really bothered Gary. Not only was all this waste, well, wasteful, it was expensive.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Meanwhile, I knew other students who were in labs that were smaller and less resourced and had less funding and they would sometimes be looking for the things that we weren't even using or in fact that we were going to throw away. And so I thought that was absurd. So one day I literally just got a cart, put things that we weren't using on the cart. I would then push the cart around the floor.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Not antibodies in the cart though.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Well, actually they were in the cart. So I would put them in dry ice and I would say, hey, do you need the aliquot of, you know, whatever it is? And let me tell you, people would say, oh my gosh, yes, we were about to buy. Oh, this is so thankful. Sometimes they would say things like, what can I give you? And when they said that, it made me think, oh, there's something more than sharing here, right? There's potentially a whole system of exchange, of sharing of exchange of value. I would say that could be had if this was more than a cart. Right? We can't scale one person at a university on one floor. That's not a global scaling solution.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Tell me about, as you started to research on a broader scale, what the situation was in terms of wasted equipment or materials or products. Lay it out for us. Big picture. What did you find?

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Yeah, so something like 45% of all global greenhouse gas emissions is because of what we call a linear economy. So that's an economy where we take things out of the ground, we make something with them, and then when we're done with them, we throw them away. If we did, all the things have to do with energy and gridding and food, there's still a 45% hole in closing the gap to net zero. And the only way we can get there is by structuring this thing called a circular economy, where the item that you're using doesn't start from new products. When you make products, you design them with the end of life and reuse in mind.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

So this is when you take a big leap, Gary, you decide to leave neuroscience and start a company.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

That's right. I knew exactly the pain points that someone would say if you said them to reuse something. On the other hand, I knew the benefits. And so some ways I was, I was our customer and user number one. I knew exactly how the system should work in the working world and for it to have global importance scale. And that's kind of how we started Reaply. Reaply, the company I founded and run, helps organizations identify and catalog the things they own, reuse them internally when they can, and distribute them to other organizations when they cannot. It's like a high tech scaled up version of me with the pushcart at Northwestern, but with hundreds of organizations, from technology to manufacturing leaders, and millions of items available for sale and donation, all cataloged on a digital platform, stretching across partners in a local area, a city or state, creating connected networks of reuse. Reaply helps organizations reuse things like building materials and IT and industrial equipment and furniture.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Gary imagined a sort of craigslist for business that could also keep track of where all the objects are.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

We need to know where every chair is. We know where every desk is, we know where every door is. Because if we know where those things are before they're, quote, lost, we can plan for their next life.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This marketplace would show when and where a chair or desk or door is available and then get the item from.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

A to B, whether they be a nonprofit next to you, whether it be your colleague on the floor beside you, I see that door, I see that couch, I see those chairs. I want them when they're available. Let's take a look at how it works for furniture. An investment bank in New York city had about 2,000 premium office chairs that they no longer could use. When they hired us, we sent in a team to inventory that furniture on that floor. When it was determined that these items could no longer be useful internally, a notification was sent out through our platform to all of our partners, hundreds of them. I'm happy to report that all of these chairs found new homes in a local university, a community housing organization and a local refurbishment company. In total, about 68,000 pounds of potential waste was diverted from landfill and about $100,000 of value was recaptured and shared with these organizations. Not to mention the carbon savings making one of these office chairs, which weighs about 55 pounds, releases 245 pounds of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Gary, I am having a hard time envisioning 2000 chairs. What would have happened if this company, this bank, didn't have a service like yours to find new homes for all of them?

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Generally speaking, what they do with the old stuff is they liquidate it or they dispose of it. And the dispose word is just AKA for landfill or throw it away. When they liquidated, I can tell you about 95% of the time, 5% of that stuff is resold, 95 of it is also disposed into a landfill.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

So somebody comes along and buys the thousand chairs and is like, I'll take care of this for you.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Exactly.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Maybe they make a little bit of money.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

They're going to make a little bit of money and they're not going to, they're not going to hold inventory that they can't sell in their warehouses. So they're going to get rid of it as soon as possible. Let me tell you a different, more circular way of doing that versus the linear way we just described. We send these thousand chairs to a remanufacturer who reupholsters them, who makes them look a little bit more befitting to maybe the designer's wishes, who's designing your new space. And then they send those chairs back to you. You've only paid for the updating of them, the remanufacturing of them and the reshipment. But you're not having the carbon emissions that comes from the manufacturing of those items. So the whole part of the circular economy from a carbon emissions perspective is trying to reduce net new manufacturing. That's where the largest share of carbon emissions happens in the world, is with, through manufacturing. And so when you think on both the manufacturing side and on the disposition side, circularity and reusage is such a better answer even at the level of chairs. So we know how to create a circular economy with a microscope on a pushcart like me at Northwestern, and we know how to do so inside and outside of a building with either its building materials or things like it infrastructure on a digital platform. Like Reaplay. But how do we get to the scale of a city and why? Well, Cities occupy about 3% of global land mass, but house over 50% of the global population, which commands over 75% of all global resources. Cities are perfect tractable fronts for us to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and create a lot of jobs by building local circular economies. Now, to transition any city's linear economy to a circular one, we're going to at the very least have to do three things. First, we have to build a digital infrastructure to connect every citizen and every company to everything in their city. Next, we're going to have to build the operational infrastructure to make reuse and recycling and remanufacturing easy and universally acceptable. Next, we're going to have to incentivize every person and business to participate in their local circular economy.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

So you are actually working with the city of San Francisco right now on a pilot project?

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Absolutely, absolutely. So in San Francisco we have launched and it's exactly all of these things are operating in San Francisco. So we have the digital infrastructure. We have operational capacity and infrastructure that's provided by the city and a few partners. We have about 200 different businesses on the platform. And San Francisco has passed a set of ordinances that either require or strongly encourage people to participate in their local reuse platform. If we can get 1000 cities to circularity by 2040, we can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 63% and get us back on track for meeting the 1.5 target set out the Paris Accords. And if we can't do that, it's going to be maybe impossible.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

I'm guessing that the only person listening to this who might think that this is a bad idea is the chair manufacturer who's like, well, wait a second, what about my business?

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Yeah, and I have good news for them. They should be participating too. They have all the upside. So for instance, your iPhone, somewhere between 50 and 60% of the materials in your iPhone are re harvested by Apple. I'm able to re upcycle materials that were in that old phone into a new phone so that my cost for new manufacturing go way down. If you think about the E commerce market, the E commerce market is growing about 16 times faster. The global apparel market, if you look at companies like Patagonia and REI comparatively to their market counterparts, they have operationalized circularity, they've operationalized these environmental principles and they're honestly crushing their competition in the market. It's a better system. It's a better system for a manufacturer to lease or to rent something as a service than to sell it. They make way more money. They control their reverse supply chain. I was just talking about the iPhone scenario. And it's just more predictable business. The problem, I would say, having friends in the manufacturing world is how do we go from where we are to there? How do we go from what we're doing today to a new system? And I think there's some good questions and good people working on those answers.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Gary, this is so exciting. And it's making me, you know, I live in Brooklyn where there's like a stoop economy. But it just is one way, you know, where you clean it out, you put it out, and it's disappeared by the next day. And, and also. Right. And my neighbor, who is the textile recycling guy, everybody knows it's easier to take your textiles and dump it at the farmer's market on Sunday than put it in your garbage.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

That's right.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Oh, and there's an opportunity because he has turned it into his livelihood like that. This is what he does.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Yeah. I mean, just on that front, I think compared to landfill and incineration and one of these circular cities, it can create millions actually green jobs. I think 6x more recycling jobs than current and 50x more reuse jobs because of what you're just saying. Because people will start remanufacturing businesses, they will start repairing businesses, they will start what I'll call reverse uber businesses. Right. I gotta take this item to you. So that's gonna create these local jobs that don't need college education, in some cases don't even need apprenticeship. They just need someone to care and someone to say, I'm going to either local remanufacturer chairs or furniture or desk or whatever it is. These assets do not belong to the landfill. They don't deserve them. When we say these are assets, they're valued, then the question is what we do with them? How can we make money off of them? And the circular economy has the answer.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Gary Cooper is the CEO and co founder of Replacement. You can find his full [e-mail] on the show today. Abandoned Places. I'm Anoush Zamarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back.

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[Anoush Zamarodi]

TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. On the show today, abandoned places, stories of desertion and renewal. And a while back I went to ted's Climate Conference in Detroit. Detroit, of course, is the once wealthy Motor City, but it hit on incredibly hard times when manufacturers and locals left in droves. One speaker, a woman named Anika Goss, is working to build a new future for Detroit, one abandoned lot at a time.

[Anika Goss]

Welcome to Detroit all of you here. This is fantastic. We are so excited to see all of you here. That TED is here. This is amazing. I am a third generation Detroiter. My grandmother moved to Detroit in 1936 during the Great Migration and brought all of her southern ways with her. She owned a home on Mendota street and knew that homeownership would create wealth and opportunity for her growing family. My family story is not an unusual Detroit story, and up until the late 1950s, Detroit was a haven for middle class families living in neighborhoods where there was green space and community, connectivity and opportunity. But my grandmother's Detroit is not the Detroit that I live in today. In 75 years, our city went from a peak population of 1.8 million down to a population of 620,000 in 2022. All of those sites where there was manufacturing and industrial sites, that led to our economic boom. Many of those industrial sites stand vacant and abandoned. We now have about 19 square miles of vacant land in Detroit. These industrial sites have led to dangerous contamination both to our land and our water and our air.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

After Anika gave her talk, she and I got together at a local coffee shop so I could learn more about her organization, Detroit Future City, and why having fewer people means rethinking Detroit's economy and landscape. I mean, it sounds like the things that made Detroit so livable, then those have changed. Can you just sort of draw a picture of now?

[Anika Goss]

Yeah. So I think what's really changed, the population loss, has had a pretty dramatic effect in ways that I think people aren't necessarily focused on. When you think of population loss, you think of just less people.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Yeah.

[Anika Goss]

But in fact, population loss also means fewer dollars for infrastructure. And when I say infrastructure, I mean, like, there's fewer dollars to fix streetlights and repair water mains and take care of parks and trees. Right.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

The basics.

[Anika Goss]

The basics. That's what that is. So all of that puts the people who are living in those communities at risk for climate impacts. First, poor air quality, contaminated water, heat island impact. And I think people are thinking that it's all equal across the board. But these people who have been living here, who live near a factory, an operating factory or a vacant factory, are definitely at the most risk for climate change impact.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

So here we are, a city that really thrived by being entrenched in its ways, but those ways aren't working anymore. And that's where you come in. Tell me about what you're trying to do.

[Shane Campbell Staton]

Yeah.

[Anika Goss]

We began to see at Detroit Future City that we have to do something in those neighborhoods right away. And that's what we really call a resilient neighborhood model. This idea of planting urban tree canopy, so an urban forest, planting intentional food gardens, but also sustainable gardens. When you think of gardens, you're thinking of kale and carrots. But sustainable gardens is what brings bees back, it's what brings butterflies back. It attracts birds, it cleans the air and the soil, and which actually supports clean water. So planting sustainable gardens alongside food gardens in neighborhoods that are also vulnerable for economic inequity is critically important.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Anika took me to visit several abandoned lots that have been given radical makeovers.

[Anika Goss]

This is so beautiful.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

It's gorgeous. We strolled through a wooded area. What was once six vacant lots is now covered with trees, gardens, a fire pit, And a stage.

[Anika Goss]

So we've done about 55 vacant lots in Detroit. We've spent well over a million dollars.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Throughout the city to help residents envision what they can do with these vacant lots. Anika and Detroit Future City have a kind of catalog of options, like a choose your own adventure for landscaping.

[Anika Goss]

So, yeah, we provided the landscape design for them.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Okay.

[Anika Goss]

And we worked together with the community for the design for the kinds of trees that they wanted to see planted.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This neighborhood picked an urban forest design. Another, a meditation garden. Wow, this must have been a ton of work. Unbelievable. Yeah. I was particularly partial to the friendly fence design, which helps neighbors turn an empty lot between them into a rain garden that looks pretty and manages storm runoff with an optional pond. Look at your fish.

[Anika Goss]

Yeah, there's a lot of fish in here.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

If you come from a city that has a lot of green spaces, maybe creating community gardens doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but for these neighborhoods, it is transformative and reminiscent of better times. My relation to this neighborhood goes way back. This is Katrina Watkins. She grew up in the historically black area called Black Bottom. My family has been in this neighborhood since 1946. I grew up hearing the stories about Black Bottom in Paradise Valley from my dad. And he was like, blacks had businesses and people looked out for each other. And it was those type of stories that made me say, wow, we just.

[Anika Goss]

Just really need to bring, you know, that back.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Just a few years ago, Katrina and her dad took it upon themselves to mow all the vacant lots around them and try and spruce up the neighborhood. We just would go and start cutting down the overgrowth. But then Katrina realized that more grants were becoming available. And with help from places like Detroit Future City, she could begin to strategically revitalize the neighborhood. And it just grew from there. Katrina founded the Bailey Park Neighborhood Development Corporation, where she is now the CEO. The neighborhood's new centerpiece includes a playground and concert area.

[Anika Goss]

It's just a really green, chill environment.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Where people feel safe to bring their children and families.

[Kara Love]

We do live music events on the.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Weekend where they can come and just enjoy it and feel the neighborhood. There are now some 250 more trees in the park and all around native plants at the edges.

[Anika Goss]

When you see the park and the.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Greenery makes such a difference in the trees. Yeah. And I had someone just tell me.

[Anika Goss]

Yesterday, you know, wow, that's.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

In this neighborhood, people often feel that way. And it's about more than beauty. Katrina recruits her neighbors to work on these projects by explaining how tree roots anchor the soil, helping to protect their homes from climate events like the massive floods that hit a couple years ago.

[Anika Goss]

It's about educating residents on the importance.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Of trees and native plants and how it makes the air cleaner. It looks really good, actually. Back at the cafe, Anika explained to me that this slow but steady approach will help revitalize the city as a whole. All right, what's going to happen? Give me your short term vision for Detroit.

[Anika Goss]

My short term vision for Detroit is that we're going to see a lot more younger, middle class, black and brown families that are moving into these neighborhoods. And these neighborhoods are going to have amazing green space, tree canopy, urban forests. It's going to look like a city that you just wouldn't expect. And not just in the nine mile radius around downtown, but it's 139 square miles.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

This is a short term, like how short term are we talking?

[Anika Goss]

I think you should come back. Give me five years.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Okay.

[Anika Goss]

I think we'll have some to show you.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Nika Goss is the CEO of Detroit Future City. To see her full Talk, go to Ted.com Many thanks to Katrina Watkins, CEO of the Bailey Park Neighborhood Development Corporation too. To wrap up our show, we want to talk about an animal that's being forced to abandon its home. Polar bears, as you've likely heard, are leaving the Arctic Circle because of climate change and and melting terrain. Conservationist Alyssa McCall explains that as the bears head south, that means that people need to learn what to do if a polar bear turns up in their backyard. Here she is on the TED stage.

[Alyssa McCall]

So what happens when ice bears start losing their ice? They get stuck on land and they get hungry. Polar bears use the frozen ocean for traveling, mating and hunting their main prey, seals, specifically high calorie seal blubber. Polar bears can't outswim seals, so they use the sea ice to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. Polar bears need sea ice for sustenance and survival, period. Polar bears want and need blubber, but they're still bears. So they will follow their noses to fill their tummies, whatever that takes. But it takes a lot. Just one polar bear needs a lot of seals. And just one seal is equal to about 74 snow geese or 216 snow goose eggs. It's a big omelet or 3 million crowberries. This amount of food doesn't exist on the tundra in quantities great enough to sustain a population of blubber hunting ice bears. So when polar bears can't find good food to eat, just like people, they'll fill up on junk food. And for polar bears, junk food is human food. And for a hungry bear, the best late night fast food takeout can be their northern neighborhood's trash. But we have a saying in conservation. A fed bear is a dead bear. And this has major implications for coexistence. This is a rising safety concern for humans, who are always the number one priority. It's also a concern for the bears because when a polar bear has a negative encounter with a human, it risks being taken out of the population in a defense kill, which is the legal killing of an animal to defend life or property. Luckily, non lethal tools are available and more are being developed, particularly in Canada, which is home to two thirds of the world's polar bears. And one of the best testing grounds for tools is in the self proclaimed polar bear capital of the world, Churchill, Manitoba. Churchill is home to the western Hudson Bay population, some of the best studied and most southern polar bears in the world. In this region, the ice free season is lengthening, meaning these bears are on land longer and have less access to calories compared to their grandparents. This does not mean all the bears are starving to death. It means the females are having a harder time having cubs. The cubs are having a harder time becoming adults. And some bears have just moved elsewhere in search of better conditions. As a result, this population has declined from about 1200 bears in the 1980s to just over 600 today, almost 50%. Churchill is also home to about 900 people, but grows by thousands during tourist season. Polar bears are an economic keystone in Churchill, driving tourism and creating jobs. It's important Churchill protects them and their people, which they do through a wide variety of efforts. But one of the most interesting and effective is their waste management. Unsurprisingly, Churchill's garbage dump used to be outdoors, which was fine until it became a popular polar bear buffet. So this is a problem for the bear's health, but also because when they're on their way to the snack bar, they risk bumping into people. Polar bears are no more likely to actively hunt and kill people than black bears. But they are more likely to attack near towns, especially when food is nearby. So Churchill did the smart thing and they've just moved their garbage dump indoors. Now the bears can't even get to it. They also installed residential bear resistant bins, so no polar bear with late night munchies in this town gets any rotten food rewards. Churchill continues to evolve their waste management because it's key in coexistence. But not everywhere can do what Churchill's done. So we need more options. Just one example, GPS tracking. It can tell us where, when and why polar bears move. It's critical data, but we've only successfully collared adult females. Adult males have these pylon heads with necks thicker than their skulls, and they just pull collars right off. And then the sub adults are still growing. And this is really too bad because the sub adults or the teenagers often cause the most trouble.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

Big surprise.

[Alyssa McCall]

So we've started working with 3M, the sticky stuff company that makes post it notes, and they're helping us figure out how to stick a tracker to any bear's fur. These bur on fur tags could be a conservation game changer, letting us temporarily tag any bear that comes too close to a community. And upon relocation, we can track that bear and intercept it before it gets too close. This could help reduce dumpster diving and reduce negative human bear encounters, keeping both species safer. So there's different coexistence tools being worked on for different needs across the north. But we can't talk about conservation without mentioning one of the most important tools of education. If you are going into bear country, polar or otherwise, please get bearaware, stay together, secure your snacks, and carry a deterrent like flares or bangers or bear spray. Bear spray works even in the cold and the wind. But finally, the number one most important coexistence tool we have is our willingness to cut carbon emissions and stop trapping so much heat in our atmosphere. But on that note, I have some optimism. Sea ice is very responsive to atmospheric temperatures. We can keep this habitat in the Arctic, but it will mean drastically reducing our emissions and eventually getting them to zero. Polar bears are fat, white, hairy canaries in the coal mine, warning us to act now. The faster we switch to cleaner energies, the better we can protect future generations of polar bears and people. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. But action is the best antidote to anxiety. And I'm working to ensure climate change doesn't separate our species for good. But until then, it's bringing us too close together. Coexistence is the only option. Let's make it safe for all. Thank you.

[Anoush Zamarodi]

That's Alyssa McCall. She's the director of conservation outreach at the nonprofit Polar Bears International. You can see her full [e-mail] thank you so much for listening to our episode Abandoned Places. It was produced by Harsha Nehada, James Delahousy, Matthew Cloutier and Lane Kaplan Levinson. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour, James Delahusy, Rachel Faulkner White, and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Katie Monteleone and Fiona Guerin. Our audio engineers were Josephine Nyonai, Neil Tivolt, Josh Newell, Gilly Moon, and Ted Mebane. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Michelle Quint, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Anouch Zamarodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Raymond James, a firm where financial advisors help you plan for every part of your life. No two lives are alike. That's why everyone deserves a financial plan as unique as they are. Backed by sophisticated resources and teams of specialists, a Raymond James Financial Advisor gets to know you, your passions, and everything that makes your life uniquely complex. Because what inspires your goals matters. Whether that's charitable endeavors, mapping out the future of a business, or building a legacy for your family, Raymond James Advisors use thoughtful planning and powerful tools to help people they serve embrace life and live it well. To learn more or connect with an advisor Today, go to raymondjames.com Raymond James & Associates, Inc. Member New York Stock Exchange Sit back. This message comes from Warby Parker Prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Glasses designed in house from premium materials starting at just $95, including prescription lenses. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. This message comes from dsw. Where'd you get those shoes? Easy. They're from dsw because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the.

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