2025 Annual Recap

2025 Buildings and Energy / Solar Projects

The Buildings and Energy Action Team has been working behind the scenes to support a local organization in its effort to implement a facilities solarization project. We expect an announcement to come soon!

We are excited to be closing out the year by beginning to plan our participation in the Oregon Garden Earth Day event in April 2026. As we approach the day, the Building and Energy Action Team will be carefully considering the best and highest value information and resources that we can provide our community. 

2025 Urban Natural Resources

We have worked on a grant through Marion Soil, Water, and Conservation District to sponsor a "Pollinator Garden" at the City park. We appreciated the great turn-out of volunteers! Thank you, Jo Aerne, for your donation of many of the pollinator plants. 

The Little Oak Grove, planted by Sustainable Silverton and volunteers in 2021, of 75 young oaks, was maintained and kept safe from deer niblings this spring by neighborhood volunteers.

The Bird Walk in May at the Oregon Garden, provided by the Urban Natural Resources Action Team of Sustainable Silverton has become a favorite annual event. 

The same board helps weed, water and maintain the Xerces Pollinator Garden at the Oregon Garden, established in 2023 (?) Thank you for your continual dedication to the Action Team and to supporting the Oregon Garden.

Fall 2025 - Spring 2026 Nature Walks

2025 Community Resilience

The Health and Community Well-Being Action Team has had a busy year, participating in four Community Resilience events, and kicking off our Nature Walk series. 

We started the year with our February event, Thriving In Changing Times: 2/8/25,  co-hosted at the library with the Oregon Public Health Division, where we continued the community conversation begun in 2022 in our first ever Resiliency event. We discussed ice storms and the community's strengths and weaknesses in critical situations. We planned and networked for better community resiliency.

A May event, sponsored by PGE and held at the Silverton Grange, focused on Wildfire Preparedness. As an event partner, the Sustainable Silverton Community Well-Being Action Team advocated for neighborhood resiliency groups. There was a great selection of resources and information about wildfire preparedness. 

The major event of the year was a collaboration in July with Silverton’s Emergency Management Advisory Committee (EMAC). Facilitated by the Silverton Fire District, fifteen organizations, including County, State, and non-profits, gathered outside of the new City Hall to provide information about the services they offer. Sustainable Silverton educated the community on how we can prepare as households and as one community.

Next, we provided a class in October at the Silverton Fifties Plus Center, presenting an introduction to Oregon’s "Two Weeks Ready" program for earthquake preparedness, as well as the fantastic Map Your Neighbor resource from Washington State, which supports neighborhood connections as the best resource in an emergency. 

We also kicked off our new Nature Walks program this Fall with our Fall Nature Walks, where each Thursday morning, we meet at a different location in or near Silverton to discover and appreciate the footpaths that offer alternatives to vehicle transport, connectivity of neighborhoods, and even flood zone escape routes. Thanks to the volunteers who helped with all the logistics of organizing locations and for being "observation guides" on the weekly walks. Thanks also to everyone who volunteered or participated in the Community Resilience events.

2025 State of Recycling

We’ve been asked out in the community: What happened to Styrofoam recycling?! Here’s the short answer! 

In community feedback meetings we had held, we heard that EPS recycling was very important to our community. We booted up our volunteer powered program. While in operation, we also asked the City to consider adding this service to the City contract with our local hauler, Republic Services. 

Expanded polystyrene (EPS, commonly known as the brand-name, Styrofoam) turns out to be tricky to recycle. A major factor, and boy, did we face it, is that this is an extremely lightweight, bulky material. Also, not unrelated, there are extremely few recycling facilities in operation, and mixed reviews on the net environmental benefit of each facility’s particular materials processing approach. Lengthy transport distances for a very small amount of material by mass makes for high cost and inefficiency. 

Republic presented their report and findings on EPS recycling to the Environmental Management Committee in 2023. The committee was presented with an offer and discussed the option to add this service. Given several factors, that committee did not recommend the City to add this service to their contract with Republic. 

One major factor was that Oregon had recently passed its Extended Producer Responsibility act, which would within a few years’ time result in an influx of grant money for recycling facility expansion. The City and Republic Services worked together to get in on the first grant funding opportunity. Today, the act has an approved plan, and the first of many expanded recycling facilities across Oregon recently came online in Southern Oregon. (Have asked City/Republic for an update on the status of our application; will add if received in time, otherwise, post to website without a final line.) 

2025 Food and Agriculture

Sustainable Silverton is developing partnerships between our local food and agricultural resources such as: GeerCrest Farm, the Silverton Food Coop, the Grange, and local farms.  We hope to include the Farmers Market in our outreach next year.  The goals are to provide communication between our local food sources, enhance accessibility and provide food resilience for people hit hardest by the economy in our community.