9/22/2022
9/22/2022
Dear Friends in Christ,
As Season of Creation winds to a close on the Feast of St. Francis in just over a week’s time, I wanted to talk about one way in which we at Saint Anna’s are holding ourselves accountable to caring for God’s creation. Earlier this year Saint Anna’s made the decision to reduce our use of plastic, especially single-use items such as plates, utensils, and cups for hospitality and fellowship. We have committed to eliminating our use of such items and instead use our dishes and silverware whenever possible, or compostable paper goods when that is impracticable. Read on for more about why this is so important and what you can do to help. For now, I want to encourage all of you to support this endeavor by refraining from bringing single-use plasticware of plastic wrapped items for coffee hour or social occasions. Either use the dishes and silverware from the kitchen that can be put in the dishwasher after use, or compostable paper products provided by the church.
A single-use plastic is disposable plastic that's designed to be used once then tossed or recycled. They are convenient and cheap which is why they are so popular, but their use means our world is overflowing with plastic waste.
Every year the US throws away about 42 million tons of plastic, including 100 billion plastic bags and 60 million plastic water bottles. That is 307 bags and 156 bottles per person. Only around 9% plastic in the US is actually recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency — even the stuff you specifically throw into the recycle bin. Best case scenario, it ends up in a landfill; worst case scenario it is discarded into nature. Plastic in landfills just doesn't go away. A plastic bag takes 10 to 20 years to degrade, while a plastic bottle takes almost 500 years. And, even when it appears to have degraded remnants remain. If they’re thrown into nature they cause harm and even death to wildlife and contaminate the soil and water. Bottom line, plastic never breaks down or goes away; it only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces until they're so microscopic they can’t be seen but can be found in our air and our drinking water.
This isn’t just a pollution problem. It’s a climate problem. And by the time we start talking about recycling, the damage is already done.
The manufacture of plastic requires vast amounts of fossil fuels using extreme temperatures and significant amount of water and energy which release carbon into our atmosphere. The process of making plastic is so energy intensive that if the plastics industry were a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, according to a 2021 report from Beyond Plastics. The same report contends that the plastic industry is responsible for at least 232 million tons of planet-warming emissions each year. That’s the same amount as the average emissions released by 116 coal-fired power plants in 2020, and the same annual emissions as around 50 million cars, according to the EPA.
So what can you do? Well, apart from supporting the decision to stop using plastic at Saint Ann’s you can do a few other things:
Say no to bottled water — use a reusable canteen.
Use reusable grocery bags — Refuse the plastic bags the store provides for your groceries including plastic produce bags. Designate a reusable bag to put your produce in while you shop.
Choose paper (or no) packaging over plastic — this is not always possible, but when offered the choice between a product packaged in paper or cardboard and one in plastic, choose the former. And consider plastic-free options like bar shampoo and soap from companies such as eco-roots, Garnier, Hibar, and ZeroWaste
Buy in bulk to reduce plastic waste — Nuts, rice and beans are all things that come in plastic bags, but they don’t need to. Bring your own reusable containers to fill with your favorite bulk foods (remember to zero out the scale before weighing).
Refuse plastic cutlery — Take your own utensils to restaurants that typically provide plastics. Or, if you’re ordering takeout, tell the restaurant they don’t need to add it to your bag.
God gave us the earth to care for so that it would care for us. Let’s commit to doing son together.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jane+