Recycle already, will ya?

I did change a few of my ways during my 18 months living in California.

Recycling, for one.

I lived in graduate housing at Fuller and they provided recycling bins, which happened to be just downstairs from my apartment. It was easy to drop recyclables off anytime I was leaving the apartment.

Then I started doing some study on creation care and our responsibility to care for the earth that God loves, and recycling became not only something easy and/or trendy to do, it became the right thing to do, one simple change in my life that would help me be a better steward of the earth and its resources.

Since moving back to Nashville, I started recycling anything and everything that I could. And discovered how easy it was, even though recycling bins were no longer right at the bottom of a set of stairs from my home.

I sort paper, glass, plastic, metal and cardboard into bags and boxes in my basement as I collect it all and when those are full, I put them in the trunk of my car and drive a mile down the street to the Nashville Metro Public Works Recycling Drop-off site at Dupont Hadley Middle School. I don't have any fancy labeled recycle bins; I just use and re-use plastic grocery bags. It takes seconds out of my day to put something in the basement and it takes a couple minutes to throw the items in the recycling dumpsters at the drop-off site.

And I've noticed a significant drop in my actual amount of trash that has to go out for the trash collectors every Wednesday. Which is a really positive feeling. I can see my recycling making a difference in the amount of trash that will just go sit somewhere.

Recycling is such an easy thing to do when you simply make the decision to do it; I don't understand why more people don't. Maybe it's personal conviction and understanding of the topic of creation care and recycling that make it an easy decision for me. Perhaps for others, they're too lazy to do it or they don't know how easy it is.

Need to find recycling in your area? Do a search here: [Earth911.com] The site also has some really great tips and articles on recycling, reusing and re-purposing.

Some times I think that what I'm doing right now isn't enough. But it's more than I was doing three years ago. And that's just a good start.