Reduce, reuse, recycle (page 3)

 

• Local authorities often recycle the following: glass, paper, scrap wood, garden waste, drinks cans, aluminium foils, plastic bottles, newspapers and cardboard. Some also take unwanted furniture. Call your local authority for details
• If you have an open fire, use newspapers and small cardboard boxes to form the base of the fire: collect twigs from the surrounding area rather than buy kindling
• Start a compost heap or bin in your garden. It can take: fruit and vegetable left-overs; crushed egg shells; tea bags and coffee grounds; garden waste; grass clippings; dead or dried flowers and vacuum cleaner dust
• Tetra Pak (used for milk, juice and soup). Send rinsed and flattened cartons at your own expense to: Smith Anderson & Co, Fettykil Mills, Nr Glenrothes, Fife KY6 3AQ
• Bread, pizza crusts, bacon rind and apple cores: give to the birds in your garden

Practical tips

Back in 1994, the Evangelical Alliance produced a booklet entitled Creation Care, addressing how Christians can take care of their environment. It called for “a lifestyle U-turn” to help protect the planet.

As well as praying and reading the Bible on this subject, Creation care recommended the following: re-use envelopes, plastic bags, jars, scrap paper; recycle what you can at your local recycling site; take your neighbour’s recyclables with you; make it a priority to buy goods produced with minimum damage to the environment, or recycled packaging.

It gave good advice on buying and throwing away: before you buy, ask, do I really need it? Can I use something else? Can I borrow it? Before you throw away, ask, could I use this again? Where does it go now?

The basis for these lifestyle changes, was biblical, Creation Care said. “According to the Bible, the human race is on earth to act as good stewards for God. We are to look after the earth with wisdom, compassion and justice...

“To use the earth for material benefit regardless of its impact on people, animals or vegetation is a sin. Such attitudes have destroyed both our environment and our health.

“We must remember that we are caretakers on earth – and not owners. The earth is not ours. It belongs to God.

” What was true in 1994, is still true today. Without doubt progress has been made. According to the latest Government figures, residents of some English boroughs now recycle and compost more waste than people in some of the greenest Continental countries.

St Edmundsbury in Suffolk came top of the recycling league in England last year. It recycled and composted 50.6 per cent of its waste, up 15 per cent on the year before. Eight English boroughs including Forest Heath, South Cambridgeshire, Lichfield, Harborough, Rushcliffe, Daventry and Cherwell, all reached combined recycling and composting rates of over 43 per cent.

The leading European nation in this regard is Norway, which recycles and composts 68 per cent of its waste. The Netherlands does 64 per cent; Austria 59 per cent; Germany 57 per cent and Belgium 52 per cent. The UK’s target is just 25 per cent by the end of this year, so we’ve still got some way to go.

There are plenty of ways that we as individuals, as well as our churches, can make a difference. One church school that’s taken the problem seriously is St Mary’s C of E Primary School in Clymping, near Littlehampton in West Sussex. It’s become the first school under the education authority to have a wind-turbine in the school field. It provides the school with all of its electricity and some income, as it can sell any excess on the National Grid.

Janet Llewelyn, the school’s headteacher, said that the turbine has had a huge impact. “Apart from providing electrical power, it has been great for the children to study it and understand how it works,” she said.

If a wind turbine (cost £34,000) seems a bit much, your church could recycle old mobile phones and toner cartridges via a company called Eurosource. It’s giving 50 per cent of the profit made from the recycling to charity – an average of £5 per phone, £2 per inkjet cartridge and £7 per laser cartridge.

There is a great deal that we can do – in however small a way – to help protect our planet for the future. And, as Christians, we can do this as part of our calling to be steward’s of God’s earth.