It’s not easy being green…

…but I’m trying. I recycle almost everything I can. Newspapers, gazillions of catalogs and old magazines, junk mail, miscellaneous paper untouched by food, old phone books, cardboard boxes—all go into my wicker recycle box. Rinsed-out cans, bottles, jars, yogurt containers, other plastic containers with the little recycle logo on them—all go into my wicker recycle box. I’m not patting myself on the back here; for each item I think to put into the recycle box, I’m sure there’s something I’m throwing in the garbage that should be recycled. The plastic bags the frozen berries come in, for example. They’re recyclable, and for a while I rinsed them well, and added them to the wicker bin. Then I get lazy or rushed and put them in the garbage.

Every few months I review the long list that San Jose provides every year on what’s recyclable and what’s not to make sure I’m compliant. I always find something I’d forgotten from the last time. The wicker box fills up fast, and twice a week I dump it into the huge plastic bin the city provides. The recycle bin holds over 300 pounds, it says on it, and it occurs to me that a human body would fit nicely in there, curled up, covered by paper all around, and who would ever know exactly where it came from? I think I should get a smaller recycle bin; maybe I wouldn’t have such morbid thoughts.

My church, St. Mark’s, is concerned about green-ness, too. It’s even less easy being green there than it is at home. We need termite “remediation” for the whole campus. Costly either way, but the noxious poison kills the termites and you can go 5-10 years before needing remediation again. The green (actually, orange) method is non-toxic, but it kills only the termites it actually touches, and does nothing to the ones it doesn’t touch. It’s less expensive up front, but needs to be done on a regular basis. In San Jose, termites are always with us. We can either poison them or kill them with orange juice.

I’ve stopped buying bottled water. I learned last year that it takes more water to manufacture the individual serving water bottles than they actually hold! I now use a thermos or reusable container for water. I do keep a larger plastic jug of water in the trunk of the car, though. The large ones are bad too, but not as bad as the small ones.

At St. Mark’s we still use Styrofoam cups at our coffee hours. When I first attended St. Mark’s, in the early 90’s, we had a pegboard with ceramic cups hanging from it. I thought that worked very well; drink your coffee/tea, wash out the cup, hang it up, and that’s that. No Styrofoam. No paper cups. Apparently not enough people washed out their cups, and so a couple of angels made it their job to wash and re-hang them. (The cups, not the people.) Then the angels died and there were lots of dirty cups hanging around on Sunday mornings, and St. Mark’s does not have a dishwasher. So, when I went away and wasn’t watching, they stopped using the pegboard and went back to Styrofoam. After raising the issue several times over the years since I’ve returned to St. Mark’s, I finally got the message. We will do nothing about pegboards and ceramic cups until there’s a dishwasher; then we’ll think about it. End of story.

But for me it isn’t the end of the story. Don’t we have angels anymore at St. Mark’s? Some have also raised the issue that others besides St. Mark’s people use the parish hall, and might use our cups and hang them back up dirty. Then we might catch their alcoholism, I guess. Or become infatuated with bagpipes, engage in creative anachronism, or take up singing.

It’s hard for me to imagine going into a place that has coffee cups available, using one and putting it back unwashed. Do we assume all other people are brought up in a barn? What has become of civility, taking care of others’ possessions as we would our own?

Well, I’m bringing my own cup of tea from home every Sunday. I’ll not drink my tea out of a Styrofoam cup, thank you very much. It doesn’t taste right, it doesn’t feel right, and it stays too hot too long. Ceramic absorbs just the right amount of heat so the tea is cool enough to drink and the cup warms the hands on a cool morning. It’s ever so much more comforting. Holding a Styrofoam cup is like hugging a fish.