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| https://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/11/17/ |
And
God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis
1:28
As we go through our daily activities,
we sometimes wonder why we do tasks in certain ways. I have concluded that we,
as children of God have been assigned to care for our earth.
I recycle what I can. Our town has a
curbside pick-up program that helps the citizens in this effort. Some people
participate because they believe their actions in recycling will keep the
landfills from filling up as quickly.
Several sites around town have
dumpsters provided by a company that collects and recycles newspapers,
magazines, and office paper. The company pays the site owners for the paper
collected.
A
school in a town to the immediate north of ours collects plastic caps and those
caps eventually are reprocessed and become park benches. An interesting
sidelight about this process is there are six memorial benches in Northern
Indiana made from recycled plastic bottle caps and lids. This project was done
by Girl Scouts. (http://fox59.com/2017/05/17/424975/)
An elderly man in our immediate area
collect pop can tabs and donates them to our state’s children’s hospital. His
efforts have received stories in our local paper and news coverage on
television. People bring these tabs to him and he scouts around the area for empty
pop cans to assist the hospital in their mission to aid children who are ill.
I have concluded that we have a
greater reason to recycle. In reading Genesis chapter one, we see God and His
Spirit forming the world out of nothing. On the sixth day, God told man to have
dominion over the fish, the birds, and every living creature on the earth.
What does have dominion mean? Simply
stated, it means we have a responsibility
for what God had given us. A friend of mine has creative ways to apply the
guideline, “recycle, reduce, reuse.”
One of my friends estimates they
recycle, reduce, or reuse 90% of what they have. If they don’t recycle through
the city program, they compost what most of everything else. Because of what I
have read in the Bible and learned from my friend, I realize anew I need to
expand my recycling efforts from just newspapers, kitchen and grocery items to
include items I toss into my waste basket in my computer room/office. I plan to
be more diligent with my recycling because it
is my responsibility.
Our county waste management has made it simpler to recycle by streaming all recyclables into one container/dumpster...so we don't have to sort them out. That makes it easier! Also, the plastic bottle caps are recycled into bulletproof vests for police and military dogs! A friend of mine collects those and gives them to someone in the local VFW ...and they go from there. Anyway, it is good to be good stewards of all that God has given us. I sometimes get lazy and forget, but I do try to do my part. Thank you for this reminder!
ReplyDeletePam, Thank you for sharing about the bulletproof vests. I hadn't heard of that use for those bottle caps. That school uses any plastic lid or cap they receive.
DeleteHi Quiet Spirit - there is a lot more recycling being done - sadly too much waste is generated ... encouragement to use all things and not waste is much needed. Cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteHilary: Thank you for your wonderful thought. We do waste a lot of things. Four of us went out to eat today, a spur of the moment decision. We went to a Chinese restaurant. All our plates and paper cups and plastic eating utensils and the chopsticks went into one container and I hesitated at the container and thought about how we could do better in the area of recycling.
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