Science	Ethics	Action	Author
	Au Sable
	serviced by the: Christian Environmental Studies Center @ Montreat College http://cesc.montreat.edu

The First Step

Calvin B. DeWitt

I once sat with 15 people in an autumn forest as leaves were forming a beautiful carpet of orange, red, and gold on the forest floor. We marvelled for a while at the beauty of it all.

Then I startled them: "It sure costs a lot of money to rake all these leaves every fall!" I said. Everyone sat there, puzzled and silent. "They don't really rake them, do they?" one person finally asked. I replied that someone must rake them because we couldn't see any leaves from the previous year. Silence. And then they began to crawl around, turning over new leaves to look for old ones.

They found none. Last year's leaves were gone -- well, almost. Someone proudly raised a slim thread of an old leaf and announced, "I found one!"

Then they began to find the millipedes and other creatures that had consumed all those leaves. Soon the members of the group were overwhelmed with discovery -- every leaf of the forest was being recycled, all without human help. Later we came upon a gardener raking leaves from a lawn. We sat to watch. Silence. Finally someone asked, "Why do we rake leaves?".

Recycling is Creation's Way

What we discovered that day is something anyone can learn from Creation: everything is cycled and recycled. Not only leaves, but branches and logs, nitrogen and oxygen-- everything!

Occasionally we encounter a puzzle -- such as the way phosphorus seems to be lost forever in runoff to the sea. But finally we discover the cycle: phosphorus washed from land to sea is returned via the droppings of fish-eating birds! Recycling is part and parcel of Creation.

Why, then, do we rake leaves, bag them, truck them, and dump them all in one place, only to find their nutrients leaching through the soil to contaminate groundwater? Why do we keep repeating this sequence that pulls nutrients from our lawns and forces us to spread fertilizer? Because we have not looked at what Creation is telling us.

Of course, we haven't been completely blind. Recycling is part of society now. We used to fill our landfills with raked leaves and everything else. In time, however, we discovered that we cannot store more and more in our landfills. The Creation does not pile up leaves forever, and neither can we. We are learning recycling lessons from God's world.

But recycling is only part of the answer. We also need to reduce what we use and to reuse more things. Ultimately, though, we need a whole new way of looking at our world -- the way of stewardship given to us by our Creator.

Recycling Is Just a Beginning

Today, 26 years after the first Earth Day, what does recycling mean for us? Sorting trash into the right bins? Displaying a "recycle" bumper sticker?

While recycling is important, it is only part of what needs to be done. The word recycle refers to a cycle-- a closed loop. Recycling that stops after things go into bins is like a bicycle whose wheels only go half way around. Recycling works only when people know that cycle means a full circle and act accordingly.

So to evaluate the success of our recycling efforts, we need to look beyond our recycling bins. When we do, we might find, for example, that though we are recycling more than we used to, we're also using large amounts of energy to transport and process our recyclables. We might even find that our efforts are ineffective or counterproductive because we are not recognizing the entire process. Thus we might be putting paper out for recycling but not using recycled paper in our office. We might be sending our garbage away for composting, but not shortening the loop by composting it in our own backyard.

To size up the carefulness of what we are doing, each of us should ask the right questions of ourselves and of those who coordinate recycling in our communities. Recycling is more than a slogan. Recycling is a part of stewardship. And stewardship is a caring way of life.

Beyond Recycling

Many things should not be recycled at all. Instead, they should be reused, rehabilitated, and repaired. The message of those bumper stickers -- REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE -- should sink in.

A group of my students discovered the truth of this message. They got into sanitary garb and sorted through the cargo of an entire waste-hauling truck intercepted on its way to a landfill. (You can do the same with the contents of a truck or even a waste basket.) They found that what is waste for some is not waste for others. Because of discoveries like this, my university entirely reorganized how it processes materials. It set up a store named the SWAP (Solid Waste Alternatives Project) as the centerpiece of a new program that replaced the word waste with material resources. The SWAP Shop reuses things before they are processed for recycling. It is now connecting with residential areas to help people to re-use things as they are -- chairs, computer keyboards, book cases, file folders, and much, much more. The SWAP Shop processed 100,000 pounds of material in its first year.

Does recycling work? Only when people proceed thoughtfully and put their heart into it. It really works very well when people are committed to reduce use and re-use.

The Goal: to Be Stewards

Reducing, re-using, and recycling are, however, part of something much bigger. Thus, my university not only sponsors the SWAP Shop and recycles, it also backs the Campus Ecology Research Project and other environmental-studies research. Through these initiatives, we learn about our soils and vegetation, trace sewer lines, organize student research projects, and discover how food gets from farm to our cafeterias, how far it has travelled, and much more. (We were embarassed to find that the average hot-dog made 5 miles from campus travels 300 miles to get here!)

We have also learned that even though we teach stewardship in our classes, we contribute to problems around the globe, such as tropical deforestation, land degradation, and species extinction. Now we are trying to come to grips with those problems.

What all this comes down to, of course, is that stewardship is not recycling. It's a way of life. And Christian stewardship is a way of life in the presence of and in behalf of the Creator. Christian stewardship acknowledges that people were created in God's image.

Christian stewardship means caring for God's world as God does. It means asking why Noah saved those endangered species, why God made a covenant with every living creature on Earth, why the land should be given its sabbaths, why Adam was asked to serve and keep the garden, and why Jesus Christ is called the Second Adam.

Good News for Creation

So stewardship is more than recycling. Recycling is just a first step on a stewardly walk. And just as a bicycle whose wheel goes only half way around is not much of a bicycle, so a walk made up of only one step is not much of a walk.

We may not selfishly keep the wonderful teachings of the Bible to ourselves. So we bring Scripture's message to the whole world, including our knowledge of God and Jesus Christ as Creator and the practice of responsible stewardship of Creation. Our homes and yards can become stewardship beacons. Our churches can become centers for awareness. Our offices, businesses, and missions can become exemplary testimonies of our reflection of God's love for the world.

Stewardship is caring for Creation, and Christian stewardship is praying not only in word but also in deed, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth..."

Please mail any comments to Dr. Mark Lassiter.