Tag Archives: sustainability

Press Release: Salt Lake City supports community-led organizations to increase healthy food access

The New American Goat Club was a 2023, 2024, and 2025 community organization recipient. Photo credit: Ashley Detrick

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June 26, 2025

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Salt Lake City continues to increase residents’ access to fresh, healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant food by funding 12 community food projects through the Sustainability Department’s 2025 SLC Food Microgrant program. 

This year, over $56,500 in funding was granted to community-led projects aligned with recommendations from the City’s Resident Food Equity Advisors Program.  

“We often talk about building a more resilient Salt Lake City, and this is one way we’re doing it—by supporting neighbors and community groups who grow food, share knowledge, and improve access to locally sourced, culturally meaningful foods,” said Mayor Mendenhall. “These microgrants are small investments with big returns for our health, our environment, and our connection to one another.” 

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Help Us Celebrate National Waste & Recycling Workers Week!

Help Us Celebrate National Waste & Recycling Workers Week!

June 16-24th marks this year’s Waste and Recycling Workers Week! These essential workers keep Salt Lake City clean and sustainable, rain or shine (even through the pandemic, earthquake, and wind storm!) every weekday of the year except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Our Waste & Recycling Division does some of the most time-sensitive, important work in the entire city! There’s all kinds of things you probably didn’t know about this crucial City division, such as:

  • Salt Lake City services more than 42,000 households, emptying garbage, recycling and compost bins every week.

  • Each daily collection driver empties between 600 to 900 bins — about 20,000 pounds — of waste, compost, or recycling EVERY DAY! Can you imagine what the city would look like if they weren’t on the job?

  • Next time you’re at an event like the Pride parade or the Utah Arts Festival (happening this weekend by the way!), please think about our team’s hard work to keep those events clean and running smoothly — and give them a thanks if you see them! 👋🏽 In 2024, Salt Lake City Waste & Recycling serviced more than 4,000 garbage and recycling containers used at 105 special events!
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Our 2024 Year-in-Review Highlights

Every year, we release a Year-in-Review featuring our high-level accomplishments as well as priorities for the year ahead. This is an important time and opportunity for us to take stock, learn from the experiences we had the previous year, and to continue to improve our programs, services, and operations.

While we engage with Salt Lakers mostly through recycling questions and efforts, we do so much more! Here are some highlights from 2024 and keep a lookout for more details in our 2024 Year-in-Review booklet coming soon. (Check out our full 2023 Year-in-Review booklet here!) Let’s take a moment to look back at what we’ve accomplished in just this year.

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Getting A Fresh Perspective on Farmers’ Markets 

By SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara

Photo credit: Downtown SLC Farmers Market

The holiday season is upon us! This can be a time to gather with loved ones and enjoy some great food, often bringing recipes we only enjoy once or twice a year. Holidays can also be a great place to start when rethinking long-held traditions, habits, and how our actions can impact our community. Food waste is a major issue in the U.S. even outside of the holiday season. About 40% of all food produced in the U.S. never gets eaten, and this amount increases by an additional 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s!  

However you celebrate, we encourage sustainable habits around gathering for the holidays, from food waste to decorations. And what better place to start than buying local food! Salt Lake City’s Winter Farmers’ Market returns on Saturdays beginning November 9th and will operate weekly from 10AM to 2PM through April 19th (closed November 30th and March 15th). SLCgreen’s summer intern Kate Kuwahara visited the Downtown Summer Farmers’ Market for the first time and shares her new perspective on farmer’s markets and learning more about our food systems. 

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Press Release: Salt Lake City updates Sustainable Infrastructure Policy as new projects kick off

Aerial photo of Pioneer Park in Downtown Salt Lake City.

Oct. 7, 2024

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Salt Lake City is celebrating Utah’s first-ever SITES- and Envision-certified projects following its recently updated Comprehensive Sustainability Policy. Glendale Regional Park, where work began last month, is on track to become the first SITES-certified project in the state and one of the largest park investments the City has ever undertaken. Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities’ new water reclamation facility, which began construction in 2020, is the first Envision project registered in the state.

Enacted last December in alignment with Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s sustainability goals, the updated Sustainable Infrastructure policy added Envision and SITES to its approved certification pathways. The Envision framework is designed to help implement more sustainable, resilient, and equitable projects, while SITES supports nature-based landscapes that enhance biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and conserve resources. These two additional systems allow for a more diverse range of City projects to utilize sustainability frameworks.

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Press Release: Salt Lake City announces partnership to bolster environmental resiliency in historically excluded communities

Sept. 19, 2024

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Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall announced an innovative partnership with Solar Stewards to fund solar, air quality, and community resilience projects in historically underserved areas of Salt Lake City. 

Salt Lake City is exchanging renewable energy certificates (known as RECs) produced on its solar array at the Sorenson Multicultural Center through a unique Social REC® model with Solar Stewards for financial contributions. Okta is the first identified buyer of Salt Lake City’s Social REC® via the Solar Stewards’ Marketplace.

“Salt Lake City is not only investing in solar energy to power our municipal operations and reduce pollution,” said Mayor Mendenhall, “we have also formed a unique partnership that will help us invest money from that solar back into the community.”

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How to Recreate More Sustainably  

By SLCgreen Intern Kailee Sendle

Salt Lake City is renowned for its recreation opportunities. With the Wasatch mountains right in our backyard, it is no surprise that many Salt Lakers, including myself, have an intense passion for outdoor recreation. Often those who love the outdoors already do their part in protecting it, like recycling and limiting single-use plastics, but when it comes to how we recreate, making sustainable choices may seem a bit more daunting. Check out these tips for making your outdoor adventures more sustainable.  

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Landscaping Equipment Exchange Spring 2024 Program Outcomes

Here at SLCgreen, we’re always working to find actionable, high-impact strategies to improve local air quality. This spring, we ran our first-ever Landscaping Equipment Exchange (in the past we’ve partnered with the State’s program). Our goal is to remove highly polluting gas-powered landscaping tools from the airshed and replace them with electric alternatives. Through this spring’s program, the City was able to: 

♻ Recycle 707 pieces of gas-powered equipment. 

⚡ Support the purchase of 1,324 electric landscaping tools.  

🌏 Reduce annual air pollution by 5,869 pounds.  

The Landscaping Equipment Exchange Program is part of Clean Air SLC – a new suite of air quality programs offered by the City to benefit Salt Lakers. It includes the landscaping exchange, the e-bike incentive program, and a forthcoming indoor air quality program – all meant to clear the air in our communities and homes.  

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Happy Plastic Free July!

By SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara

“Plastic Free July” by Alachua County CC BY 2.0  

What is “in” this season? Refusing, reducing, and reusing plastics for a more sustainable summer. 

So … What is Plastic-Free July? 

Plastic-Free July is an initiative started by the Plastic Free Foundation, an organization founded by Rebecca Prince-Ruis that works towards the vision of a plastic free world. Since its beginning in 2011, the campaign has spread across the world, amassing an estimated 89 billion participants. Over the last five years, participants have collectively avoided 1.4 billion kilograms of plastic.  

The movement has inspired global action from Hong Kong to the Philippines to Melbourne. Examples include plastic free hospitality initiatives, community engagement centered on reusable alternatives, and refilling stations for household cleaning supplies and personal-care products.  

Now, you may be wondering: why are single-use plastics such an issue?

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2023 Year-in-Review Highlights

By SLCgreen

Every year, we release a Year-in-Review with featuring our high-level accomplishments as well as priorities for the year ahead. (Check out our full 2023 Year in Review booklet here!)

It’s also an important time and opportunity for us to take stock, learn from the experiences we had the previous year, and to continue to improve our programs, services, and operations.

While we engage with Salt Lakers mostly through recycling questions and efforts, we do so much more! Here are some highlights from 2023 and keep a lookout for more details in our Year-in-Review booklet coming soon. (In the meantime, you can take a look at previous annual reports for 2022 and 2021.) Some notable achievements include:

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