Cheryl Lohrmann leaves no plastic behind

By Rebecca Robinson
The Portland Upside
October 2009

Leave No Plastic Behind volunteer Adina Menashe (left) and founder Cheryl Lohrmann display a portion of the National Plastic Quilt Project, one of their programs to raise awareness to reduce plastic.

“I foresaw a more traditional life for myself,” says Cheryl Lohrmann, describing her unforeseen transition from nonprofit staffer to social entrepreneur. She pauses, reconsidering. “Then again, I’ve always liked getting people to think differently.”

While working at the conservation nonprofit Oregon Wild, Cheryl founded a community organization called Create Plenty, a waste-prevention and food production initiative that arose from a Portland-based project, Leave No Plastic Behind (LNPB).

From planting seeds at her church’s Soil and Conservation Days as a child in rural Michigan to taking photographs of garbage and junkyards in Chicago after college, Cheryl has always cared about the environment. But she traces the inspiration to found Create Plenty to reading a single book.

“Elizabeth Royte’s ‘Garbage Land’ changed my life,” Cheryl says, her eyes lighting up as she describes the book’s in-depth exploration of landfills, shredders, and other final destinations for our mountains of trash.

“The section on plastic was so much worse than any of the others. There are so many chemicals that we’re introducing into our lives with plastic that we haven’t studied fully, and [reading about it] made me realize I had to spur more people into thinking we don’t have to accept things the way they are now.”

Armed with the new information, Cheryl started brainstorming creative ways to engage and educate the public about waste reduction and alternatives to single-use plastics. She came up with Leave No Plastic Behind (LNPB), a project blending art, activism and community-building activities.

LNPB’s mission—“to sharply decrease the demand for single-use plastic through the development of creative awareness campaigns”—finds expression in the National Plastic Quilt Project. It’s a collection of foot-long squares made of single-use plastic joined together to create a collaborative work of art. The quilt illustrates the ubiquity of plastic and asks people to reduce their consumption.

Contributing artists are asked to walk their talk by adopting a “plastic-observant lifestyle” for three months. They agree to refrain from purchasing or using any items composed of or packaged in single-use plastic. The list is lengthy: prepackaged foods, to-go coffee lids, shampoo, bottled water, and many other staples of everyday life.

he Create Plenty venture hoping to get funding through the changeXchange social venture capital website (see “Find your passion, take action,”) is the Action Center, a “community hub” with a store, container reuse station, garden and workshop where cooking, gardening, building and food storage skills are taught and exchanged in an environment which builds a cooperative, low-waste community.

“A place where you can have a café and a market and a deli and everything food-related without sending the consumer home with more trash,” is how Cheryl sees it.

Her long-term goal is to have Action Centers around the city “as prolific as 7-11 and Plaid Pantry,” to promote a sustainable, healthy lifestyle and create local jobs. The Action Center will show that Portland is moving beyond the plastic bag and tackling single-use packaging in creative ways.

“It won’t be easy,” Cheryl concedes. “We have to invent a new infrastructure. But not a high-tech one, just a practical one.”

Which, in her estimation, may mean looking to the past to guide the future.

“Maybe progress isn’t something no one’s seen before; maybe it’s something behind us that happened already,” says Cheryl. “It’s communication and sharing resources with each other.”

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To learn more about Create Plenty and Leave No Plastic Behind, visit www.createplenty.org

Rebecca Robinson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor based in Portland. Have a story that needs telling? Contact her at rebecca.michelle.robinson@gmail.com