Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005110264
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Can other agencies do a better job of keeping waste out of landfills?
Does broadening the involvement of church people in the Earth preservation movement weaken the "traditional" goals of the church?
Those are big questions to ponder as New River Valley supporters of their churches gather cans from roadsides, haul newspapers to central bins or discuss the difficulties of separating colored glass.
For the past 20 years this reporter has been educated to the view that churches should be involved in ecology. The world belongs to God and we are merely his stewards, so this position goes.
Quite apart from overflowing landfills or the small amount of money available from selling products for reuse, we are told to recycle because God would want us to.
Churches of the mainstream and liberal bent have stressed ecology since the 1960s and have never really stopped preaching stewardship of the Lord's creation. Just how effective this is remains unprovable.
Churches are often better at education than organizing for action. My own church recently sponsored a month-long Sunday morning series. A guest outlined the theological position.
Then a representative came from the local agency for a clean valley and from another group that advocates buying food with minimal plastic wrapping.
At the end of the month, many individuals, myself included, set out boxes in our garages for glass, metal and plastics. Taking my newspapers to a bin to keep them out of the landfill has been my practice for several years.
That this bin once was sponsored by a church and now by a retired people's service group shows the breadth of concern.
Church newsletters indicate that educational programs are fairly popular in the new wave of interest attending Earth Day 1990. The small amount of money realized from paper, glass and metal collection accumulates in accounts for hunger offerings or youth group trips.
One-shot Earth Day efforts may give youth groups a project, but busy young adults are more likely to be motivated by non-church efforts.
This year, Earth Day found me in the Atlanta area visiting my own young adults there. On Saturday morning my son-in-law invited me to accompany him and a friend to the nearby recycling center.
A dozen families bring their recyclables to a central spot among the manicured lawns twice monthly, and a few leaders in the neighborhood organization load two pickups.
Though no stewardship of God figures in this enterprise, these idealists are enthusiastic about reducing their landfill waste. The movement is a lot bigger than the church.
Back home I remembered the blocks church people can put in the way of practical recycling. That explains why education for individual action may be the most effective thing the church can do to alleviate the overwhelming problem.
It's easier to organize a neighborhood project, harness the energies of young men and women - even if on a Sunday morning - than it is to motivate church members to bring bags and boxes of faintly smelly discards to a crowded hallway or fellowship hall, there to offend participants at a parish dinner.
Despite these realities, a spot check of several New River Valley churches shows that organization of ecological action is not impossible.
Charles Lockerby, pastor of Dublin United Methodist Church, calls parish recycling a very good experience.
The Daily Bread free lunch program in operation at a Pulaski church has benefited from the more than $400 the church has accumulated in the past eight months from its fourth Saturday collection.
At Dublin, members are asked to bring their sorted discards the week a corps of volunteers goes to Central Recycling in Radford.
"We can endure [the trash in the church hallway] for that time," Lockerby said. He noted that the project is carried on by the Church and Society Commission, which tries to make a Christian impact on social problems.
It has never been considered a fund raiser, the pastor emphasized, but a saver of landfill space. And it's another way for people who admire the church as a place for action to see results.
At the Presbyterian Church of Radford, Linda McMillan of the parish staff agreed that a church recycling project is worth the trouble.
"In the past year we've realized about $500 off 7,000 pounds of glass and 1,000 of aluminum and metals. We give any money to Habitat for Humanity."
Storage hasn't been a problem at Radford, said McMillan, because of a private area behind the church. A crew of volunteers hauls the recyclables to the center at the end of every week.
Such efficiency is a goal of the Rev. Tom Magri of St. Jude's Catholic in Radford. When the parish moves from its cramped quarters in about two years, he said he will encourage expansion of educational efforts and recycling office paper. For now, said the priest, there's just too little storage space and personnel.
Typical of many churches is Slusser's Chapel Church of God near Mount Tabor. The Rev. Stanley Hunter, its pastor, said young people have collected aluminum sporadically in cooperation with the Ruritan Club.
"It takes a lot of time in a small church - more time than I've got to organize the people," Hunter said. A better plan, he suggested, is for members to cooperate with secular agencies.
by CNB