Letter to the editor
Recycling makes sense
To the Editor:
Since 1992, Eastmoor United Methodist Church in Marion has been a "Creation Care Church." Valley United Methodist Church also has earned this award.
The church congregations receiving this distinction are part of a continuing project of the Conference Commission on Church and Society. These churches "recognize the responsibility of the church toward lifestyle and systemic changes in society that will promote a more ecologically just world and a better quality of life for all creation." ("United Methodist Discipline")
Each congregation participates in four areas to earn this distinction. One action has been to recycle all office paper and church bulletins. We also have discontinued the use of Styrofoam coffee cups.
There was a recent article in the Wichita Eagle about the recycling program in Newton. The cities of Peabody and Hillsboro currently have recycling services available. Now with a newly elected city council in Marion, I hope that we can be a progressive community too, and offer recycling.
Recycling newspapers saves 17 trees for each ton that is recycled. Aluminum and "tin" (steel) cans saves 65-95 percent of the energy needed to produce new cans. A tin can will last in a landfill for 100 years, and aluminum takes 200-500 years to decompose. It is undetermined how long a glass bottle lasts when buried in a landfill, but it may be as many as 1,000,000 years! Not only could we save valuable resources, but we could reduce the amount of MSW (municipal solid waste) that is trucked to the landfill from the transfer station.
Eileen Sieger
Marion
