Innovation Barn: How Charlotte Plans to Go Zero Waste

Table Of Content

• Innovation Barn: Free Public Tour
• Envision Charlotte Innovation Barn
• Popular Articles
• Innovation Barn: How Charlotte Plans to Go Zero Waste
• Inside Charlotte’s First ‘Circular Economy’ Project at Innovation Barn
• GoFundMe Accounts Created For Officers Affected By Monday’s Deadly Shooting
• Tours of the Innovation Barn

The City of Charlotte owns the building and Envision Charlotte manages, designs, and implements the programming within. A circular economy has zero waste — its waste products are re-used or up-cycled, instead of going to landfills. Some of the projects at Innovation Barn are aquaponics, a mushroom garden, a plastics lab, a teaching kitchen, a cafe, and more. Innovation Barn, at 932 Seigle Avenue, Charlotte, North Carolina, is a joint project by Envision Charlotte and the City of Charlotte, with the goal of transitioning Charlotte to a circular economy. It’s a combination of entrepreneurial businesses, zero-waste initiatives, and a space to bring groups together in order to learn more about and implement circular projects. The City of Charlotte rents the building to Envision Charlotte for $1 a year.

Innovation Barn: Free Public Tour

The Innovation Barn has a glass crusher that takes recycled glass and turns it into sand for repurposing. They also take certain types of plastics and turn those into products like bricks and benches, according to Aussieker. The city began its circular economy efforts in 2018, after China stopped importing certain recyclables, including plastic and mixed paper. Cities like Charlotte had to pay higher rates for recycling or stop altogether. Charlotte decided to follow the example of the circular economy action plan that the European Union adopted in 2015.

Envision Charlotte Innovation Barn

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Aldersgate residents Ted and Gaye Smith spend over 40 hours a month collecting, cleaning and driving their retirement community's plastic to the Innovation Barn. About half the 36,000-square-foot building has been renovated so far. The Innovation Barn is still looking for corporate sponsors and other potential circular economy tenants.

Popular Articles

The Innovation Barn is located at 932 Seigle Avenue in Charlotte. Click here for more information, including how you can reserve a tour of the Innovation Barn. Join over 47,000 local readers and get our FREE newsletter every day. The greens are sold to local restaurants, and the tilapia are harvested for Refugee Services.

Eric Kirsch, owner of Chi Catering, grows them to practice “on-demand catering”; he harvests only the exact amount of produce he needs each day. So raising money for staff, resources, and programming is Aussieker’s priority for Innovation Barn’s second year. She wants to build an education center “where we take everything inside but make it more like Discovery Place,” she says, with interactive exhibits for kids and adults. Even the renovation itself played the recycling game, said Elizabeth Hamilton of Progressive AE architecture, who helped design the building. "And we tried to utilize it for furniture, or we have lumber products that we sell out of our store in Pineville."

Innovation Barn: How Charlotte Plans to Go Zero Waste

The Innovation Barn will be a model for Charlotte's grand plans to become the first city in the U.S. to become trash-free. "There's opportunities and resources for jobs and economic mobility all within our trash, which is kind of crazy," Aussieker said. She leads the nonprofit heading up the development that will turn Charlotte's trash into treasure. A new development is opening on Seigle Avenue later this year that could turn your trash into everything from bricks to leather to phone cases. As of June, Innovation Barn was more like a business incubator for sustainability enthusiasts. The first thing I see when I enter is a row of 20 aeroponic towers of lettuces and herbs.

In the event that all spaces are called for, street parking is available along Otts St. We are also conveniently located close to a CATS bus stop. — A former horse barn in Charlotte is being transformed into a zero-waste facility boasting cafes, retail stores, and more. Located on Seigle Avenue, the building is the first of its kind in the United States and seeks to create a circular economy. Soldier flies will break down waste behind a glass case and food will be harvested from a garden for a restaurant and a beer garden. The city has spent nearly $5 million to renovate the old building on Seigle Avenue in the Belmont neighborhood. It's a joint effort withEnvision Charlotte, which will manage the building as a showcase for what it calls the "circular economy."

That's known as "linear economy." In the "circular economy," the goal is zero waste, with everything being reused, either by the business itself or by others. I visited the site in June to see what Aussieker and her two staff members had accomplished in Innovation Barn’s first 10 months. The team has welcomed eight tenants, created nine jobs, hosted 1,000 tours and 7,000 visitors, and arranged 2,000 volunteer hours. They’ve hosted events like “Trash Talk,” a monthly series about recycling, and “Circle Up,” networking sessions for people interested in sustainable business. But projects like Innovation Barn, which opened in September 2021, are committed to trying.

Tours of the Innovation Barn

Envision Charlotte offers guided tours of the Innovation Barn to the public twice a week. Public tours are Tuesdays and Fridays and are limited to 20 people. “Here we will be using spent brewery hops and coffee grinds to grow mushrooms outside,” Aussieker says. The barn is located just outside uptown Charlotte on the corner of Seigle Avenue and Otts Street. That’s where Amy Hart has been making art out of scrap metal. By 2050, Charlotte plans to take the 400,000 tons of trash that is thrown away every year and turn it into reusable products, such as uniforms and linens.

When the vegetables absorb the nutrients they provide the fish with fresh, purified water. This system requires very little water, since it’s repeatedly recycled. Innovation Barn is the city’s first circular living lab, which aims to eliminate waste and continual use of resources. It’s part of a big initiative by the City of Charlotte to go zero waste. “It is really to show the public what a circular economy is and how you can start diverting waste from the landfill,” Aussieker says.

Amy Aussieker, the executive director of Envision Charlotte, says it’s like a forest. The vision imagines labs that will create leather from fruit peels and 3D printers that will turn plastics into phone cases and building bricks. The building used to be known as the city's old horse barn but soon it will be called the city's Innovation Barn. — The Innovation Barn is a building on Seigle Avenue that was once a city of Charlotte horse barn over 100 years ago.

For example, The Bulb gathers excess produce from stores and distributes them free of charge, to communities with food insecurity. Then The Bulb gives their leftovers to Crown Town Compost, who composts the scraps to create compost for gardens. "There are opportunities with trash. We can create jobs, we can create products and Charlotte can be known for that," Aussieker said.

Imagine eating at a cafe serving food from a greenhouse right on site, or heading to a retail store that uses old scrap metal to make art. And while people are visiting, they could also get rid of some old plastic food containers, turning them into personal protection equipment. The idea behind the Innovation Barn is to create jobs while growing businesses that reuse waste materials.