Join our Plastic and Carbon Fast this Lent!

Fasting during Lent has a long history within the Christian tradition.  The origins can be traced to Jesus’ 40 day wilderness fast, as well as to practices embedded in the traditions of ancient Israel.  For some, the idea of fasting is about deprivation.  For some, rebalancing.

The Creation Care Team invites you to join us as we seek to Walk More Gently by becoming aware of the plastic we consume and consider ways we can reduce our use of it. Here are a few facts to consider:

• The 8 million tons of plastic that end up in our oceans each year is equivalent to a garbage truck full of plastic dumped into the sea every minute.
• There are more microplastics in the ocean than there are stars in the Milky Way.
• In the US, we use 380 billion single-use plastic bags a year. Worldwide, some 2 million plastic bags are used every minute. These bags take 400 years to decompose.
• More than 480 billion plastic bottles were sold in 2016. The world uses about 16 billion disposable plastic-lined coffee cups each year.
• In 2015, around 55 percent of global plastic waste was discarded, 25 percent was incinerated, and 20 percent was recycled.
• The options for handling plastic waste – disposal in landfills, incineration, and recycling –all have environmental impacts, including the contamination of soil and waterways from leaching toxins, the release of greenhouse gases that worsen the climate crisis, and the release of toxic emissions that harm human and ecosystem health.
• Much of the plastic we recycle can only be recycled once or twice. It will then end up in landfill or incinerated. Recycling only delays — rather than prevents — disposal in landfill or incineration.

Let’s learn all we can about our plastic consumption and its impact on God’s creation. To read about the ELCA Young Adults and Advocacy groups’ efforts to give up plastics, follow #NoPlasticsforLent on social media.