As spring starts to arrive, I find it easy to sing praises as my soul thrills to the beauty of God’s creation – sandhill cranes migrating back north, buds pushing up from the soil, planting vegetable seeds in the Randall greenhouse. Creation reflects God’s glory (Psalm 19:1) and testifies to His eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1:20).
God gave humans dominion over creation (Gen 1:26-27, Psalm 8) and gave Adam the task of “tending and keeping” the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). Unfortunately, our dominion has tended towards domination, and our careless consumption is dumping waste on a creation that groans as it waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19-22).
I believe our intentional community at Taylor is failing in many ways to honor God’s command to steward creation well, but especially when it comes to our solid waste (a.k.a. trash). Our campus generates 50 tons of waste a month which gets buried in a landfill (more than 1 pound of trash per person per day), costing the university approximately $60,000 per year.
These weekly truckloads of waste are shipped to landfills, carefully engineered facilities to protect us from the harmful chemicals that leach out of trash but that preserve it to last for thousands of years and require perpetual monitoring. You have probably driven by one of these “craters of waste” where they are carefully built up into “mountains of waste”. Recycling is not a perfect solution (first reduce, then reuse), but it is certainly a much better option than landfilling (or even incinerating) all that waste!
We must take responsibility as individuals for our own actions. Every time we dispose of something, we are making a choice with long-term consequences. People often feel confused about what is recyclable, but it is really as simple as paying attention to the labels and avoiding some common mistakes. Recycle every clean piece of paper and cardboard and every empty can and bottle. All plastic bags, wrappers and Styrofoam containers are NOT recyclable. If in doubt, throw it out – otherwise you contaminate the whole bin. Putting every can, bottle, box and sheet of paper into the correct recycling bin could reduce the amount we send to the landfill by about 50%! Composting our food waste would divert an additional 20%.
Unfortunately, Taylor too often mirrors secular culture: self-absorption, individualism, and a focus on convenience that means few people carefully sort recyclables into appropriate bins. The decision was made by Taylor leadership to reduce recycling bins on campus over the past 5 years, not because they don’t approve of it, but because most of the recycling
bins were contaminated with non-recyclable waste from careless people, meaning the whole bag had to be thrown out anyway.
It does not have to be this way. If the Taylor community cares to recycle and demands many more and clearly labeled recycling bins, I feel confident that the administration will respond positively. After all, it saves the university money, and it demonstrates to the world that we take seriously every part of scripture. I pray that we can show significant enough interest in this now so that recycling, and campus sustainability more broadly, is included in Taylor Thrives 2.0.
Many environmental issues can only be solved through collectively working together against our own individual self-interests. For those who prefer less government involvement, this poses a challenge for how to inspire collective action. Recent government deregulation confirms that now, like no other time, Christians must model stewardship behavior that benefits Creation. Surely the church, or a Christian community like Taylor, should demonstrate leadership in working together for the common good.
You may not feel like you can make a difference, but truly, change is made by each person making better decisions and advocating for support to make those behaviors easier. Lent is a season of reflection, of mourning and lament, of considering how we too should take up our cross. Christians often take symbolic actions during Lent, abstaining from self-indulgent habits to help them remember to reflect on our Lord’s sacrificial love. Why not let careful recycling be part of your Lenten preparation for Easter? It honors God and demonstrates love for your neighbor.
