Green Team
A Green Team is a group of people concerned about nature and our environment. Our concern is rooted in the sense of stewardship endowed in human beings by our Creator. We love God and believe it is our duty to care for all of creation in life-affirming ways. Members of the Green Team share this special concern and work in community to develop and implement steps toward creating a more sustainable relationship with nature.
Green Team Members offer stewardship of creation in multiple ways that reflect the individual’s call and talent, gifts, and graces. Maybe you want to help initiate efforts to reduce, reuse, or recycle; maybe you would prefer to be an energy steward helping our church to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy costs. Does gardening or working with plants and trees sound more like you? Maybe you would simply like to be in a community with like-minded individuals and can offer prayer and presence. These are just a few of the ways to participate as a member of the Green Team.
If you have concerns for local ecology, the Green Team may be the group for you. Contact Pastor Kim (kking@zumc.org) for more information or to join our contact list for upcoming meetings and events.
Changing Habits
An effective way to change a habit is to anchor it with another action you are committed to and do regularly. Try these prompts for a better, cleaner spring:
When you are spring cleaning and realize you no longer need something, resist the temptation just to toss! Instead, take the time to find a place to donate. Your efforts avoid adding to landfills and to air and land pollution and to the injustice suffered by people close to the landfill.
When you care for your house plants, re-energize them with any of these: cooled cooking water from preparing vegetables, potatoes, pasta, or green tea (leaves or brewed). No wasted water and happy plants—a good combination.
When you shampoo your hair, kick the plastic habit. Choose a shampoo bar instead. Try various options for no plastic-use for multiple personal and home care products.
In your personal prayers, pray for God’s creation and for justice.
When you head to the beach, lake, or river for recreation, note that the word is also “re: creation.” Look at the beauty God has provided and offer a prayer of gratitude. Look also for signs of humanity being care-less with nature. Take gloves and trash bags (preferably reusable) along with your supplies and stash the trash. Try quantifying your haul by weight or number of bags for example). Tell others what you have done and discovered.
You want to recycle but keep hearing conflicting information about what is and what isn’t recyclable. One of the reasons is that different municipalities can recycle different items. It all depends on what recycling processors are available to them and at what cost.
Here are a few things you can do to improve your recycling habit:
‘Wish-cycling’ vs recycling. We all would like everything to be recycled but that isn’t reality. If you place items in your curbside container that aren’t recyclable in your area, you are adding financial, labor, and environmental burdens to the recycling chain. Items that aren’t recyclable must be pulled from the sorting conveyor and thrown in a landfill.
Plastic bags, bubble-wrap, toilet paper/paper towel wrap are ‘filmy’ and trash bags get tangled in machinery and wreak havoc. Take these items to a grocery/big-box store for recycling.
Unclean/un-rinsed containers with sticky peanut butter or congealed sauce contaminate other recyclables and pose a health risk to the people sorting and handling them. Wash them. Not just a casual rinse. Clean them well.
Rigid plastics. The recycle codes on the bottom of plastic containers indicate what may be recyclable. Not all plastics are recyclable in all municipalities. Check with your curbside pickup provider and place CLEAN plastics in your bin. Also check with your local provider about whether the caps should be left on the bottles or not. This varies by location.
Batteries are not recyclable at curbside. They are, however, recyclable if you drop them off at a location like Batteries Plus. Even AA and AAA batteries are acceptable there. Ask them about their requirements.
Scrap metal. Empty and CLEAN drink cans, food cans, and non-hazardous cleaning materials containers are recyclable. Razor blades, metal hangers, and silverware are not recyclable curbside. Call a local scrap metal recycler and take them there if they are accepted. Metal is actually a valuable item for recycling.
Paper. There are loads of places to recycle paper. If you put it in your curbside bin, it should be bound with cotton string or sealed in a PAPER BAG so that it doesn’t fly everywhere when the bin is emptied.
I know it seems hygienically correct to put your recyclables in a kitchen trash bag before putting them in your curbside bin. This is a huge mistake. Anything in a bag will get tossed in the landfill because the human handlers don’t know if it is trash, don’t have the time to open the bag and sort it, and the plastic bags can get caught in the sorting machinery. Please don’t waste your time and your bags.
The bottom line is that each geographic area differs in what is recyclable. Your metro area may not have processing providers to recycle some items. So, you really need to contact your curbside collector or check their website and find out what THEY are collecting and how it should be submitted by YOU, the customer.