Act
Comprehensive Catholic youth ministry often finds youth and adult leaders on quite a few bus trips. Traveling to service projects, retreats, ski resorts and pilgrimage sites serves as a microcosm of how we deal with trash. For some odd reason the youth and adults on these buses always want to pass their trash to the front of the bus. To be fair, the bus driver usually has a trash bag or container at the front of the bus. Inevitably, the trash container becomes full within the first thirty minutes of the trip.This means that those who sit in the front of the bus are forced to deal with the overflow of trash to keep it from rolling up and down the aisle as the bus traverses through paths that are often less than straight.
When I served as a youth ministry leader I began a "deal with your own trash" policy. It basically followed the state park system which invited visitors to take out whatever it was that they had brought in. No trash would be passed forward on the bus. In some ways this helped to keep the bus a bit cleaner. The "deal with your own trash policy" forces everyone to come face-to-face with what they are using and how they are disposing of it. In a throw-away society it becomes easy to pitch and go thereby forcing others to deal with the mess. In a deal with their own trash policy young people had to consider how and where they were going to dispose of their trash. The policy afforded future opportunities to reflect on the impact each one of us makes on the environment every day.
In a state park visitors are often giving a small trash bag which they are supposed to fill with their own trash and bring out of the park to dispose of later. The more you bring the more you have to deal with on the way out. This policy protects the environment while also giving each person a reality check about how much trash they produce in one short visit.
The following present ideas to help us deal with our own trash. They include friendly community-building games with youth, information on supporting fair trade products, along with sample ideas for families, parishes, and schools to consider. Take a look . . .
Community-Building Games
Reverse Scavenger Hunt
Gather at a local park or school yard and split your group into teams. Have them canvas the area for trash and give points for trash collected. After a specified time limit gather the group and award points to see which group was most effective in cleaning the environment.
- 6 points – plastic bags and plastic bottles
- 5 points – soda cans, glass bottles
- 4 points – for identifiable trash
- 3 points – for unidentifiable trash
- 2 points – for cardboard
Recycle Countdown
Set up three empty plastic containers in the front of the room. Put one of the following titles on each of the three containers: plastic, paper, metal/glass. Divide your group in three small groups. Give each group 2 minutes for each container to brainstorm items that can be placed in them. Each group creates three lists. At the conclusion, go through the lists together and cross off duplicates. The group that wins is the one that thought of the most items to recycle.
Create a Toy
Divide your group into small groups of 3 or 4. Challenge each group to spend the next 20 minutes creating a safe toy with any resource they can find inside or out. Have each group present their toy and explain how they found a second life for something that was thrown out.
Fair Trade
The poor suffer the most from the negative impact of our consumption. One of the ways to help change a mindset is by introducing families, parishes, and schools to fair trade products which return human dignity to people just like you.
Check out the Catholic Relief Services Fair Trade Blog and sign up for the Fair Trader newsletter to learn how our daily decisions as a consumer affect the world.
Fair trade coffee, chocolate, and hand crafts are just the beginning. CRS also provides educational materials and links to nongovernmental organizations that work to promote fair trade throughout the United States.
Know Your Number: What's Your Carbon Footprint?
- EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculator
- FAQs: EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculator
- Energy Star Home Energy Yardstick
You Count
- Ever wonder if what you do really matters? Find out, read Individual Actions Make a Diffredence.
- How Teens Can Lead the Way Today
Greenversations Blog
EPA Blog: Students for Climate Action
Resources
Sample Ideas for Families, Parishes, and/or Schools
From birth to death, pick five objects and create a timeline from the beginning of the natural resources used to create the item, what it took to manufacture it, how it was transported and sold, how it was used and how it gets disposed of. Be sure to include at least one item that has the potential to be recycled.
- Go on a nature walk and look for things in nature that inspire you. After the walk consider ways that you can learn more about preserving nature.
- Camp instead of using a hotel. Be sure to deal with your own trash.
- Spend a day using alternative transportation. Consider your daily carbon footprint and how public transportation lessens the impact. Bonus: spend a week using alternative transportation and pray for those around the world whose only access to transportation is public transportation.
- Purchase food at a local market or coop. Consider how supporting local farmers makes a difference to the local economy and reduces the carbon footprint of food transported across the country and/or between countries.
Put a timer near your shower. Put the stopper in your drain, run the shower for a minute. Measure the amount of water your shower produces per minute. Add up the average amount of time each family member uses the shower and multiply it by the amount of water used per minute. Set a family and/or personal goal to reduce the amount of water used in each shower taken.- Bring your own container to a restaurant for leftovers when you go out eat. This reduces the negative impact of Styrofoam containers.
- Count how many batteries are used in your house, parish or classroom. Create a place to store used batteries so that they may be recycled at the appropriate area rather than just throwing them in the trash.
- Have a family meeting about lowering your heat in the winter and raising the air conditioner temperature in the summer to help conserve energy. Consider ways that would help family members deal with the change.
- Use cloth napkins at home and when bringing a packed lunch. Use cloth bags when shopping. Try to eliminate the use of plastic water bottles and replace with a reusable water container.
- Consider trash free ways to bring food to picnics, sports events and other gatherings to reduce your impact on landfills.
- Go see the movie Earth, www.DisneyYES.com/earth and review their field studies online which provide hands-on examples of conservation and working together for a better world.