Prayer
God our Father, you created the world and sent your own Son to live among us, made of the same stuff, breathing the same air, marveling at sunrise and sunset just as we do.
Help us to participate in the life around and within us as your life, as you living in us and we living in you and in each other.
God of love and life, restore us to your peace, renew us through your power, and teach us to love all that you have created and to care for the earth as your gift and our home.
The Earth Community: In Christ through the Integrity of Creation
Knowledge
Lately, I have been reading more about “linear” vs “circular” economies. A linear economy is also called the “take-use-dispose” economy; meaning we take from the environment, use the resource, then dispose of it. Crafting a circular economy would stop the waste of resources.
Unfortunately, people can’t get rich from a circular economy. There is no incentive for those with the most power to move in a more sustainable direction. Sustainability just doesn’t pay the big bucks.
If we are going to make a dent, we must start with our personal and institutional choices. And, we must find a way to use less to begin with. The average US citizen consumes as if there are 5 planet Earths instead of the one we have. In fact, consuming less is the first of four elements of a circular economy identified in a recent paper by Jan Konietzko.
- Narrow: use less materials and energy from design through use and recovery, including incentivizing consumers to consume less, and encouraging sharing.
- Slow: use longer by designing for durability.
- Close: use again by designing products to be recyclable over and over. after a consumer uses them.
- Regenerate nature by using non-toxic and renewable materials that are powered by renewable energy and recovering nutrients that are usually lost, such as with composting and natural fertilizer.
Action
There are many ways we can close the loop and contribute to a circular economy. First, we must realize that nothing is ‘disposable’. Resources can either be used again or they cannot, but nothing is disposable. When you put a ‘disposable’ plastic item in the garbage, it either gets burned (releasing all its toxic additives to our air and water), stays in the environment, or, if it is the lucky 9%, gets recycled. But even that is limited to a few cycles. When you dispose of the produce that went bad in the fridge (again), it can either be composted and returned to the environment, or it is buried in a landfill, where it will produce copious amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas.
Check out local Refill Stores. In Cincinnati we have two – Fill More Waste Less in Findlay Market and Simply Zero in Over-the-Rhine. They have a lot of products and systems in place to eliminate waste. They even ship to you!
Compost your food scraps. Download the ShareWaste app to find gardeners close to you who want your scraps.