Did you know that a waste audit was completed as one part of the process of learning more about our stewardship of our resources within this church and its buildings? We owe many thanks to our middle school youth and their adult leaders who, on October 11th, donned rubber gloves and brave spirits (and strong stomachs!) to take on this dirty task of sorting through the contents of four large bags of trash collected from several different locations in the Christian Education building.
After dumping all of the trash contents onto tarps, our auditors began a process of sorting through and then classifying each piece of trash according to the type of trash (some of these categories were mixed paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles & jars, aluminum cans, newspaper, and organic material). Next, they began estimating the amount of trash found in each category and finally, they began the process of making decisions about whether the contents of each of these trash categories should be considered true garbage correctly destined for the dumpster, or whether it should be reduced, recycled, re-purposed/reused, or composted.
As you might have already guessed, our auditors found that we need to improve our trash reduction, recycling, re-purposing, and composting practices. As an example, they found recyclable cans, bottles, cardboard, and art paper in the trash. They also found that a significant amount of the trash was contaminated paper plates (therefore no longer recyclable) and plastic cups, as well as significant amounts of plastic flatware. The GreenFaith team will be looking at ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and remember that reduce is usually the best option! More about this later! ~Jean Post-Winget
