The newly-created Hermiston-area chapter of Oregon Rural Action has tabled its plans to establish curbside recycling to focus on bike paths, a community garden and waterway cleanup.

“The recycling market has taken a serious nosedive,” said Shaun Daniel, an ORA organizer. The price that recyclers can get for products such as used cardboard has dropped to a small fraction of what it was before the recession, he said, resulting in a glut of recyclable materials that no one wants. To try and start a recycling program in such an environment, he said, would be difficult at best.

Curbside recycling that included plastics was the Columbia Basin chapter’s centerpiece project at its kick-off meeting in November.

But the budding activist group has rebounded with a plethora of other ideas for the Hermiston area.

Gus Wahner, a Stanfield resident and member of the ORA’s board of directors, said he hopes to establish a community garden in cooperation with local schools.

“It wouldn’t be like a normal community garden, where everyone has their own plot,” he said.

People who put “sweat equity” into the garden would be rewarded with a portion of the food that is grown, Wahner said.

Wahner, who sells “biologically grown” (the word organic must be reserved for operations that are certified, he said) vegetables and eggs at area farmers’ markets in the summer, said he’s already looked at potential plots of land for the garden on the outskirts of town near Sandstone Middle School.

Members of ORA also want to help develop bike paths within and between local towns and assist with litter cleanups around local waterways.

Jordawn Wambeke said ORA’s efforts in respect to litter removal would supplement already impressive volunteer efforts by groups such as SOLV.

“I would say that ORA is not so much interested in creating a new program so much as helping support programs that are already established,” she said.

The group also recently discussed the support of more buildings in the area that use green technology such as solar panels.

ORA has chapters all over the state, including Union, Baker, and Malheur Counties. It spearheaded a Renewable Energy Development Enterprise Zone in Union County and started a campaign in Ontario to reform the water shut-off policy to low-income users.

The next meeting of the Columbia Basin chapter of ORA will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, at the Hermiston Conference Center.