ABOUT SPG

A FUTURE VISION FOR PACIFIC GROVE

So let's imagine Pacific Grove as a sustainable community, a place where residents eat locally grown food and shop locally for their daily needs. Parks are surrounded with edible landscapes. An open-air market bustling with people buying fruits, veggies and local crafts offers a place to find fresh items grown close to home.

The city has an odorless compost drop-off for all the area restaurant food waste. Residents can claim composted soil to use in their own yards, each planted with fruit trees and edibles. Cisterns collect rainwater from roofs, reducing the runoff into the bay while offering water for the dry season. A local reservoir holds local runoff and offers water for gardens. Solar panels allow a zeroing out of the electricity bill even during our foggiest years.

Residents walk throughout town finding the goods they need and new stores open to showcase locally manufactured products. A local bike store houses a bike-lending library, and citizens ride scooters and bikes down our roads. A tool-lending library and a fix-it shop opens to allow residents to share tools and knowledge.

Pacific Grove becomes a city that demonstrates simplicity and the beauty of being sustainable and grows the one thing few towns can grow -- community. Sustainable Pacific Grove is dedicated to making such a vision a reality.

Sustainable Pacific Grove in 2008

SPG continues to work at finding more ways for Pacific Grove to become more green and sustainable.

( to see SPG activities during 2007 click here. )          ( to see SPG activities during 2006 click here. )

What we have done in 2008

1. Creating the GREEN SPOT - together with Surfriders and Applied Solar, SPG started the work on making the corner of Pine and Forest a Sustainability Resource Center for Pacific Grove.

a. Plantings are in and they are marked with "chalk talk".
b. Outside railing/door painting done with some fun designs.
c. Inside bar is varnished, new little rug made of recycling water bottles, pictures of ASE projects hung. Window faux-stained glass is in progress. ( We may need more bullet holes to really make it nice. )
d. Banners are made to mark places of interest at the Green Spot; COMPOST, CISTERN, SOLAR, GREEN SPOT.
e. Surfriders have painted a mural on inside wall with Kidwell donated low VOC paint.

2. PG Farmer’s Market – Sustainable Pacific Grove continues its commitment to the the establishment of a weekly farmers market in Pacific Grove.

3. Fog Catchers - SPG sponsored a Saturday workshop on how to make a fog catcher to gather water from fog for yourself. Workshop will be presented by Dan Fernandez, Professor at CSUMB and Tyler Frome, graduate of CSUMB.

4. Good Old Days 2008, April 12 and 13 - SPG had lots going on check out what was happening at the Green Spot ( Besides the table on Lighthouse ).

5. PG Bans Styrofoam, April 16 - An SPG member sat on the task force to draft a model ordinance banning styrofoam take-out containers. The draft ordinance was passed unanimously at the Monterey Regional Waste District meeting in March and then issued to every city in the county and to the Board of Supervisors. April 16, the City of Pacific Grove was the first to pass the ordinance with a unanimous council. Marina will hear the ordinance May 6th and Monterey will vote later in May. 

This began in 2007 here .

6. Compost Making - SPG sponsored an evening presentation on how to make a compost for your own use. This was at the regular SPG Tuesday evening on May 6.