Spring Into Action for Earth Month

City of Sunnyvale, California sent this bulletin at 04/02/2025 08:59 AM PDT

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Sustainable Sunnyvale Newsletter - April 2025

Earth Day Festival: Empowering Our Community

On April 5, show your love for our planet by attending Sunnyvale's Earth Day Festival! The event is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Sunnyvale Civic Center. It features family-friendly and sustainability-focused activities. Bike to the event and explore a variety of environmental activities hands-free after checking your bike at our free valet.

Local non-profit organizations will be tabling along West Olive Ave. to share their expertise on environmental protection. Visit the community booths to learn about sustainable actions such as electrifying your home and starting a compost. Enjoy live entertainment at the amphitheater in the redwood grove with lunch served on reusable foodware.

Other event highlights include:

Sustainable arts and crafts for kids
Guided tours of the beautiful trees on campus
Lunch and dessert from local food trucks
And much more!

Join us in empowering our community and building a sustainable Sunnyvale. We hope to see you there!

To learn how to empower our community, visit SunnyvaleClimateAction.org. For more information, email green@sunnyvale.ca.gov or call 408-730-7717.

Spring Irrigation Reminder

As spring begins, it's time to check and fix your irrigation system. Seasonal check-ups help ensure the system’s water efficiency. Contact Valley Water through email or call 408-630-2000. For a seasonal check-up, schedule a free water-wise outdoor survey.

To prevent water waste, please take the following steps to help save water:

Do not water between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., unless irrigating by hand i.e. using buckets or hoses to minimize evaporation loss.
Sprinkler watering is limited to 15 minutes per day per station.
Avoid water runoff when irrigating outdoor landscapes.
Fix any leaking plumbing or irrigation systems.

For more details and other prohibitions, check out the City’s municipal code, §12.34.020 Nonessential uses prohibited. Let's make conservation a California way of life!

Our Power, Our Impact

Sunnyvale residents can still save! Whether you own a home or manage a building, there are programs to help you use less energy and lower your costs.

You can get:

Cash back for making your home or building more energy efficient
Helpful tips from SVCE’s eHub and FutureFit Homes programs to save even more

Visit Rebates to learn more and apply.

How Gen Z Convey Their Appreciation for Nature

About the Student: Celine is a senior at Homestead High School. She loves learning about and drawing birds. In the future, Celine wants to be a wildlife biologist or an exotic veterinarian.

Caring about climate change is so brat. You might feel nervous, watching your teenage child stick to their phone to themselves daily. Social media, such as Instagram and TikTok, influence teenagers to follow trends. But everyone realizes the dangers of lengthy screen time—studies show that overusing your phone can lead to depression and anxiety. So why is social media serving as a platform to embrace nature?

Creative works, called edits, are the reason. Edits live in Instagram reels and TikTok. These stylistic, satisfying, and short videos, encourage teenagers to appreciate the wilderness more. These simple videos showcase wildlife and landscapes or emphasize the effects of global warming. Paired with trendy music and quick facts, edits inspire teens to appreciate the earth.

Though screen time is still a concern among parents, you can sleep a little better knowing that most teens are learning to admire our planet's beauties–and to step up to help! Get your teenagers more active in their environmental actions—accessible resources. Visit Sustainability and Take Action to learn how to make individual impacts together.

Why Does Sunnyvale Have Food Scraps Recycling Instead of Composting?

If you're a Sunnyvale resident, you might have wondered why our city collects food scraps separately from yard trimmings. It can be a little confusing, especially since nearby cities offer composting programs. So, let’s take a moment to explain the reasoning behind our approach.

Sunnyvale collects food separately from yard trimmings to get a better, more versatile product. Our food scraps are turned into a "mash" that is codigested to generate electricity. They power water treatment plants in the Bay Area and will eventually all go to Sunnyvale’s Water Pollution Control Plant. Traditional compost can’t create electricity, so our food mash is considered a higher-quality material.

Our second reason for having a food scraps program is capacity. As the second-largest city in Santa Clara County, we create 25,000 tons annually of combined yard trimmings and food scraps. There are no nearby compost facilities available to take that quantity, so it's a plus that we can use our food mash for other purposes.

As for your yard trimmings, we put those to good use too! Those are turned into a plant-only type of compost that residents can pick up for free at the SMaRT Station. It’s truly a closed-loop system.

Mercury Pollution: Sources and Solutions

Mercury is a naturally occurring metal that is liquid at room temperature. It is mined from a red rock called cinnabar composed mainly of sulfide. Humans have used mercury for centuries. Mercury is very toxic to humans and the environment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), even small amounts of exposure may cause serious health problems. Products that contain mercury include batteries, lightbulbs, dental fillings and thermometers. Improper disposal of these items can lead to mercury pollution in the environment. People are exposed to mercury when they eat fish and shellfish that contain mercury. Tiny amounts of mercury in the water can build up in animals through the food chain in a process called biomagnification. This is why fish lower on the food chain are usually safer to eat, as they have less mercury buildup compared to larger predators. To learn more about which fish are safe to eat visit seafoodwatch.org.

To help prevent mercury pollution in the San Francisco Bay, properly dispose of mercury-containing items.  Never throw them away in the trash. Do you have a mercury thermometer at home? Exchange it for a digital one for FREE at our mercury thermometer exchange event on April 23. You can take part in National River Clean Up Day in Sunnyvale on May 17. Removing trash helps to prevent pollutants like mercury from entering the Bay.