Since 2021, Chicago Muslims Green Team (CMGT) has been an active member of the Community Tree Equity Working Group in supporting Our Roots Chicago, the City of Chicago’s tree equity program.
Our common goal is to expand the tree canopy coverage through an equitable approach. In simpler words, we want this Chicago map to go all green.
Tree Canopy Coverage Percentage By Census Tract. Source: chicago.gov
We want every neighborhood in the City to reap the benefits of trees. Trees provide shade for our home from the sun and blocking winter winds. Trees improve air quality, absorb water, thus help to prevent flood. Trees promote physical activities, increase walking traffic, and bring communities together. Trees reduce stress and anxiety. Trees also help to repair urban biodiversity. In conclusion, trees help to lower our energy bills, increase our property values, and improve the quality of life in our neighborhood.
Source: chicago.gov
The City of Chicago has a goal to plant 75,000 new trees in neighborhoods with low tree canopy. The City also has developed CHI311 App for anyone who wants to get involved.
Tree Equity Working Group Year-End Report. Source: Raed Mansour
However, it is still not an easy task without the support from community members. It would be a waste of tax payers’ money if the trees end up dying due to lack of water, being ignored, or vandalized by people who reject trees around their properties or in their neighborhood.
From 2021-2022, CMGT has been educating ourselves, spreading awareness to our diverse communities, connecting to other organizations by attending and organizing trainings, hosting webinar, giving talks at events, and attending tree planting events. Here is the clip to see our activities.
2021-2022 Tree Planting Program activities
In 2023-2024, CMGT is grateful to be one of seven organizations who receives the Resilience Grant to expand our Tree Planting Program. Under the guidance of CRTI (Chicago Region Trees Initiative) Morton Arboretum we believe that together we could achieve our specific goals in greening our beloved city and spreading the benefits of trees to our diverse communities in Chicago this year. InshaAllah!
The Resilient Grant Kickoff event on December 13, 2022. Source: Caroline
Last May, I went back to Jakarta, the capital city of my home country Indonesia for the first time in eleven years. I was surprised to see the amazing development of the newly integrated system of Jakarta’s public transportation. I don’t know how to drive. Therefore, I always depend on public transportation wherever I go.
Newly built train station close to my parents’ house in Jakarta, replacing the old ones that used to be dirty and unorganized
Compared to Chicago, I can say, I definitely choose public transportation over driving a private car in Jakarta. The integrated Busway and the commuter rail system can beat the traffic jam. That is the most important reason. Additionally, there are many options of public transportation there. We can choose two wheels (motorcyle taxi), three wheels (Bajaj), four wheels, small and big size of buses.
Another reason is, I enjoyed all the public facilities offered at many developed train stations. In a majority Muslims country, two public facilities that are needed the most are a clean bathroom and Mushalla, or small mosque for praying five times a day. It was great that we can find them easily at many Busway and train stations.
Public facilities in many train stations in Jakarta
Beyond that, we can also find cell phone charging stations, Nursery Room, and restrooms for disabled. In some stations, they even equipped with a small free library and a green space.
Green space in Jatinegara Station
Free library in Cikini Station
Back to Chicago, I am happy to know that the City is working on revitalizing public transportation under CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) as part of the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan (CAP). One of the actions to improve air quality is to increase CTA ridership 20% by 2030. Will that be possible?
Understandably, Chicago has more challenges than Jakarta in order to motivate people to use public transportation. One major challenge for me is the extreme weather in summer and winter.
Another challenge is how slow the buses are running because there are too many stops. In Chicago, with limited options of public transportation, it takes longer time to reach the destination by CTA than by a car.
However, there are of course many advantages of using public transportation. We don’t have to worry about parking, insurance, permits, tax, etc. I also learn more about a place when I travel with public transportation.
For example, I recently took Metra to take me to Bemis Wood North, in Westchester, IL to attend Hiking Leadership Training. I fell in love with Western Spring village because the Metra station there is so clean, neat, and beautiful. In front of the station, there is a museum that becomes my goal of destination to visit one day. It also inspires me to create a plan of weekend gateway to visit all Metra stations in Illinois.
Metra station at Western Spring, IL
Tower Museum in front of Metra Station
When I shared my experience on CMGT’s WhatsApp group, one of our community members, Amina Rahman also shared her experience without driving in the City. She wrote, “Where we lived in the city, we chose to have one car as a family. Alhamdulillah, I feel it was really great because it forced me to be more organized about food and other shopping. We mostly did that on the weekend except for occasional milk runs on the weekdays.”
As a mother, she would take the kids to activities, museums, millennium park, jumaa, and other places by stroller/walking and bus and trains. “It was great to get to know the layout of the city, get to know the neighborhoods/shops/people in different areas as you slow down instead of zooming past everything without paying attention. It also allowed us to explore things and stop along the way which we may not have done otherwise,” she said.
Her kids love riding the bus and train and even just looking around while they walk and ride the stroller. “As they got older, the bigger kids would bring scooters so they don’t get tired and the little ones rode in the double stroller. Having the double stroller helped to carry all the snacks, supplies and even the scooters when we went indoors. One of the best bonuses is the little ones would fall asleep at nap time and I could just when them into the house with the stroller without waking them to take them out of the car seat!” she added.
It’s a great story to share. I love to hear it!
Sometimes, it’s true that private car offers more comfort than public transportation, especially if you are not the driver. In a hot and humid Jakarta, many people prefer to be inside an Air Conditioned car all the time. It’s the same reason I prefer to be inside a warm car in a snow day, rather than waiting outside for the bus or train.
However, in the name of comfort we often sacrifice an opportunity to challenge ourselves, to learn new things about a place, to keep our options open to explore the world, and to contribute to a better air quality for the benefits of all .
Spring is finally here! It’s time to start gardening. Check out these three tips to save money in gardening.
1. Free compost and free mulch
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago offers free Exceptional Quality (EQ) Compost. According to their website, the EQ compost is a sustainable and environmentally beneficial product derived from wood chips collected from the City of Chicago’s routine tree trimming programs. They then process them with biosolids in open windrow machines.
Photo Courtesy of Caroline W
The website lists six pick-up locations in Illinois. My favorite one is at 3500 Howard Street, Skokie. It is very easy to do BYOB (Bring Your Own Bucket). After the big “Free Compost” sign, you can park your car and then fill up your bucket(s) with as much compost as you have buckets for.
Chicago Departments of Streets and Sanitation also offers free mulch that is derived from the debris of trees and branches removed by the Bureau of Forestry. Their website lists four pick-up locations. My favorite BYOB location is at 5333 N. Western Ave. The mulch is available on a limited basis for pick-up during working hours of 6:30 am to 2:00 pm Monday-Friday.
2. Free used gardening supplies from Freecycle.org
If you need gardening supplies and you don’t mind using previously owned ones, sign up to freecycle.org, an online community for bartering. You can list “WANTED” items or items you can “OFFER” for others. Everything must be free and picked up.
I have been a member of this wonderful grassroots movement in Chicago for many years, and obtained lots of useful stuff and even shared my own items that I no longer needed.
Last year, I posted my WANTED items: shovels and medium sized flower pots. Not only did I get two shovels and multiple pots, I also got some gardening tools for free that the former owners wanted to get rid of.
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t halted bartering since porch pick-up became an easy and safe option. We have also shifted communication to email or phone, making face-to-face interaction unnecessary.
3. Recycle waste into gardening supplies
It is very easy to recycle and repurpose wastes. For example, toilet paper rolls or yogurt cups can be reused as seedling pots. Used plastic bottles and milk cartons can be repurposed into planters. Wire hangers can be recycled into many useful things too especially in gardening. I recycle my wire hangers into tomato cages and hooks for my greenhouse.
Photo Courtesy of Caroline W.
Another thing we can recycle for gardening supply is, of course, our food scraps! Instead of throwing away egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds, etc., we should feed them to our plants. I got ½ pounds of red worms after I finished my C3 (Chicago Conservation Corps) training, and they worked wonderfully for turning my food scraps into compost.
Protecting and saving our ailing planet begins with a willingness to make changes. Making a change needs courage. Taking that first step towards change can be frightening, disturbing, or disheartening. Finding the right group of people for support can help one to summon the courage needed to take the leap forward toward empowering change. Dr. Rohany Nayan is the CMGT Education Team Leader. She found her courage to make an empowering change when she met with and then joined the Chicago Muslims Green Team (CMGT).
When Rohany first moved to Chicago in 2017, she noticed two disturbing things about her new home. The first was the ubiquity of homelessness in the city. The second was the widespread mismanagement of unrecycled plastic trash. Her reading on the topic of panhandling in Chicago led her to learn more about the issue of homelessness.
In the United States, it is estimated that there are over half a million of people who are homeless. In the city of Chicago alone, it is estimated that 80,000 people were homeless before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is feared that this number may be much higher during this crisis. Sadly, the management of homelessness too often focuses on managing the problem rather than seeking comprehensive solutions. Homeless people face multiple bureaucratic hurdles. This becomes a formidable administrative labyrinth for those looking for safe, permanent housing. Many end up feeling defeated and resign themselves to living on the streets. Clearly, there is a lot that needs to be done in order to fight the systemic problems related to homelessness.
Rohany’s experience with CMGT has increased her awareness about environmental issues, especially the problems related to the wasteful use of plastic bags. CMGT, through its educational programs, strives to build bridges between diverse communities. By doing this they hope to increase awareness of our ecology, natural resources, and the protection of our environment. This is accomplished by engaging social justice issues while promoting a mindful, sustainable, and eco-friendly lifestyle inspired by Muslim traditions.
Research on plastic bags reveals the love-hate relationship that we have with them. Despite being convenient, durable, and easy to use, we also hate the fact that plastic bags pose many dangers to our environment. According to the WorldWatch Institute’s report in 2004, Americans use and throw away 100 billion plastic grocery bags a year. Less than 1% of these plastic bags are recycled. They tend to clog machines at recycling facilities and are costly to recycle. As a result, they often end up in landfills where they take about 500+ years to photodegrade. Furthermore, plastic bags are also dangerous as they break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and local waterways, and threaten the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
How might we change this situation? Is it possible to change despair into hope? Rohany often turns to her faith as a Muslim when thinking about solutions for problems. In this case, the source of her inspiration comes from this particular verse in the Qur’an:
“Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves,” Sūrat al-Raʿd (The Thunder, 13:11).
The opportunity to make a difference came through CMGT when she took a course offered by the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3), a program of the Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. The C3 Leadership course recruits, trains, and supports community leaders in working together to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods and schools through environmental service projects.
For her final project in the course, focusing on concepts such as rethinking, reusing, and conservation, Rohany designed a project that weaves creativity and upcycling into one mission – to conserve, crochet, and care for neighbors and the environment by making PLARN (plastic yarn) sleeping mats. From November 2020 until April 2021, participants in this project will collect recycled plastic bags and transform them into useful, comfortable PLARN sleeping mats that hopefully will warm hearts and bodies.
The PLARN sleeping mats offer comfort and cushioning as they create a barrier between the cold and hard ground and one’s body. Additionally, one can easily clean their mat by hosing it down and leaving it to dry. A PLARN sleeping mat retains one’s body heat while sleeping and most of all, provides a cleaner way of sleeping as bugs do not like plastic bags. Each PLARN sleeping mat takes approximately 700 plastic bags to make and saves those bags from our landfills. The PLARN sleeping mats are useful and are needed especially by our local neighbors who may be experiencing homelessness.
Rohany hopes to make a positive impact on our planet and neighbors in need. Through this PLARNSleeping Mat: Conserve, Crochet, Care project, Rohany brings together diverse community members of ages 5 to 100 in raising awareness about conservation, the dangers of plastic bags and keeping non-recyclable plastic bags out of landfills. This project aims to make 100 plarn sleeping mats This means saving about 70,000 plastic bags from landfills, lakes and waterways!
Our ailing earth and our neighbors need our courage to make necessary changes possible. Rohany wants to be a mindful Muslim and calls on everyone to be a “mindful” individual who practices mindfulness where one develops greater attention and care for actions, thoughts, feelings, and inner states of being and avoids israf (wastefulness). It is important to remember that we are NOT separate from nor are we unaffected by our surroundings. We need to welcome and embrace practices that have neither negative impact on our environment now nor in the future. A reminder from our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) who said, “Should you wish to act, ponder well the consequences. If good, carry on. If not, desist” (Ibn al-Mubārak).
It’s incredible how plastic has been affecting our lives since the 1950s. Below you can identify the top five countries that generate the most plastic waste.
O children of Adam, take your adornment [i.e., wear your clothing] at every masjid,1 and eat and drink, but be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess. (Qur’an, 7:31)
You can be a Green Khalifa and help the environment. Join the PLARN Sleeping Mat: Conserve, Crochet, Care project. Check here all the information about this incredible project and be a Guardian of the Earth.
