- Give unwanted or outgrown clothes to charity shops
- Use old CDs or DVDs as bird scarers in your vegetable garden
- Old bed linen can be used as floor cloths and to cover surfaces when decorating
- Find a furniture recycling scheme in your area and pass on all the furniture that you no longer need. This can include white goods (fridges and freezers) as well as duvets and pillows, but will vary geographically
- Plastic containers can be re-used at plant sales and for potting on; polystyrene containers can be broken up and used for drainage in window boxes
- Take plastic bags with you when shopping
- Cardboard boxes can be used for storage, or to wrap presents
Earth stewards
Members of the Evangelical Alliance are already doing pioneering work, particularly in the arena of furniture recycling. Many excellent church-based schemes are running across the country, based on the simple notion of collecting from people who have unwanted goods and delivering it to those who need it.
Christian Concern Crewe set up one such scheme nearly 20 years ago. What began with three Christian couples and an estate car, is now a business recycling 10,000 pieces of furniture a year, saving 250,000 tonnes being dumped in landfill. The firm employs nine members of staff and has 43 volunteers, 13 of whom are on a special scheme for people with learning difficulties.
“We are stewards of the resources of this earth,” says the Rev Rob Wykes, Director of Christian Care Crew. “If you are a Christian, you have a responsibility to make the best use of everything in your hands. We are driven by doing that as an expression of our faith. We are responsible with what is available. Also, it involves us with the community in a way that churches normally aren’t.”
The project works hard to ensure that it doesn’t create a culture of dependency. People who receive furniture are encouraged to pass it on to others through the firm, once they are able to and no longer need it. So the recipient becomes a giver.
“I know of one three-piece suite which we have given away twice and sold another three times,” says Rob. “I have an enormous sense of satisfaction about this work,” he adds. “I feel very privileged. I do go to bed at night knowing that we have definitely benefited a particular individual. I feel overwhelmed when I work with adults with learning difficulties who give and give and give out of the goodness of their hearts.
“Who wants to leave Bible college and pastor a church with a lot of moaning people, when you can work with chests of drawers that never answer back?” he laughs. “We were judged on the cross with Christ. But we have to look the Lord in the face and be honest about how much we cared about the things that He created. It’s a personal responsibility.”
Christian Concern Crewe hasn’t stopped at furniture recycling. Now it recycles school clothes to youngsters who need uniforms but whose families can’t afford them. And it supplies a Baby Box for teenage mothers giving them a starter kit to help with the baby. One pound buys anything for a year, including second-hand prams, pushchairs and baby baths.
Wood work
Meanwhile, Springboard for Life/Way of the Goose in Coventry is busy recycling wood. The organisation is part-funded by the European Union. Its aim is to provide training and work for the long-term unemployed and those on the margins of society.
Its newest project is wood recycling, where would is taken in from suppliers and used to make anything from tables and chairs to bird tables and toys.
“I’m not a passionate recycler,” says Dave Jamieson, Director of Springboard for Life, “but I do like doing stuff with wood. Wood’s a very useful material and good to work with. I like to see it polished. “The possibility of making things is quite easy. The sort of people who work here are practical people: it makes them so much more confident when they have made something.”
Launched at the beginning of January, the wood recycling scheme aims to re-use 10 tonnes each month, “Though I’m not sure what ten tonnes looks like,” Dave says.
The imaginative scheme – which will see unwanted pieces of wood turned into furniture for sale – has inspired the local community. “The reaction locally has been very good,” says Dave. “We’ve had very robust support from individual Christians and churches in Coventry. That’s kept us going. “Doing this gives me a sense of achievement.”
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