Climate change is — and should be — claiming our attention.
Eco-responsibility is not a niche interest or a different issue from Christian holiness.
If you know the Bible, you will have grasped that the early stories include God placing eco-responsibility on humanity in the Garden of Eden, and entering a covenant relationship with all creation (not just Noah and his family) after the flood.
You'll know, too, that social justice is inextricably entwined with love of God, and that this two-stranded thread of faithfulness runs centre and front in the Law and the Prophets. The two sins of Israel that feature repeatedly are apostasy and social injustice. Climate change has a social justice component, because it creates poverty and impacts most heavily those who are already poor. The plight of many refugees can very often be traced indirectly, if not directly, to climate change. For instance, the Syrian conflict that erupted into so ugly and prolonged a crisis, and made so many settled middle class ordinary people into refugees, can be traced back to roots in degradation of the land through climate change, that forced young men to seek employment in the cities to fulfil their family responsibilities of care and provision. It started that simply and ended in multi-national bombing and people strewn across Europe, destitute and persecuted, risking their lives under lorries and on the open sea.
If we are serious about the Gospel, we have to pay attention to climate change. In our day, loving the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our strength implies and includes eco-responsibility.
Two of the very best responses every one of us can make are simplicity and sharing. Neither of these requires wealth or technology of particular skills and abilities. Both should be foundational to our daily practice. This article, about increasing cost of living linked to increasing scarcity driven by climate change, makes very clear that our wellbeing as individuals and as a community will in the very near future depend heavily on simplicity and sharing. I think we would do well to pray every single morning, "Please show me how to practice simplicity and sharing today. Please lead me in the way of sharing and simplicity."
To add to that general thought, I'd like to offer one particular issue to think about today — microfibres.
As I'm sure you know, when we wash synthetic clothing it releases microfibres into the water, which find their way into the ocean — they are even in the Arctic ice and the remotest reaches of the deepest seas. From there they enter the water cycle and get into the body of fish, with the end result that they are also in our food and from there they get into our bodies. The bodies of animals, birds, fish and human beings have an increasing percentage of plastic.
In recent times, as I've grown older and found life more tiring, I've increasingly opted for clothing made of synthetic fabrics. I did know the damage it does, but I made that choice anyway. I've had to repent of that and go back to making natural-fibre choices as far as I can. But still my skirts have some polyester in as well as wool, and I wear nylon tights and my bras are made of something synthetic.
Going forward, washing machines (at least some, and I hope all) will be made with filters to catch microfibres and prevent them flowing out when we wash our clothes. There are also filters that can be retro-fitted onto existing washing machines.
But there is an easier, cheaper, less technical option we can reach for right now — filter bags for laundry. The one I have is about the size of a pillowcase and zips shut. You put any synthetic fibre garments inside it, and just wash them as usual — they can go in the machine or washed by hand, whichever you usually do. You fill the bag up to two-thirds, so the clothes inside can move about in the water and get properly clean.
Washing the laundry inside a bag extends the life of the clothes, because it reduces by a lot (about 85%) the breakage of fibres through the garment being tangled up with other things and bashed about in the machine.
When the wash is done, the clothes are hung out on the line as usual to dry, and the filter bag is zipped shut and also hung out to dry. Once it's dry, you unzip it and scoop out any fibres traded inside, putting them out with your household waste.
The bag I have is called a Guppy Friend. It's made by a non-profit organisation called Stop Micro Waste. They have some helpful advice about laundry here.
I got my Guppy Friend washing bag from Boobalou, but it's available from several online eco-stores (it's here on Peace With The Wild and here on Ethical Superstore), and seems to be the one most commonly recommended.
I thought £25 rather a lot to pay for a mesh bag — but I guess this is yet another benefit of practicing simplicity; it makes the money go further, putting expensive items like that within my reach. It is, after all, a lot cheaper than running a car. And it's also where sharing comes in. Because I live in a shared house, I can fold it up and leave it ready on top of the washing machine, so the other people in our house can use it when they do their laundry too — and it doesn't cost them anything; which is a small way of loving them.
Both for washing my hair and washing my clothes I've also gone over to using laundry strips and shampoo bars (I've linked to the ones I've been actually using, but there are all sorts to explore), to eliminate one more unnecessary piece of plastic packaging.
On the subject of plastic packaging rather than laundry, I'm also reluctantly accepting the wisdom of committing to getting my vegetables from a veggie box scheme — local veggies and no packaging at all (they collect the box and re-use it). I did this before but found it hard to keep up with eating all the veg, but I'm trying again. I get mine from Abel and Cole, and I'm also going to get my baked goods from them because they come in paper wrapping not plastic (these are delicious), and for my meat I'm going to buy their wild game, because their packaging is minimal and the animals have been the most free and natural they can possibly be. I can get eggs and bread from them too, but I like to get some things from local shops, so I'll get these on the high street mostly. And at the present time all our fruit comes from our garden, and our herbs for seasoning. I'm starting to think wistfully about oranges, but they'll be in season soon, and you can buy them unwrapped from most shops.
4 comments:
...eco-responsibility and love for all creation...that's how we feel here at The Potters House...
Hurrah! There's a movement of the people. x
Thank you, a thousand times, thank you. I didn't know about these washing bags. A quick search helped me learn more and that there are filters that you can fit to your washing machine to help as well. I have known about microfibres and the water supply, fish ingestion and so for quite a while. I have stopped buying these things but obviously I didn't know how to address the washing issue. I have started buying stainless steel pegs and almost every toy I purchase if either paper based or wooden. I prefer to wear natural fibres but as you state it is very difficult to avoid synthetics in our society.
Yes we are all responsible and need to tread lightly. It amuses me when various people berate the older generation as a group. When I first started buying for myself I bought shampoos etc in refillable bottles and I used concentrates that I diluted to cut waste. I was not alone in this as there were shops all over the place that allowed this back then. I prefer old fashioned items such as Pears soap. Age has brought some changes and my skin and scalp are sensitive now. I buy huge bottles as there are not refills available in the items I need to use. I have had two pump bottles that has been used for over a decade. Now I wonder about e waste. It is never ending. Sadly electric type cars are not affordable or pushed much by the Australian government but we do have a new car and hopefully this will help. We have solar panels and generally we meet our energy needs. We have a specialist heat pump hot water system. Our aircons (all four) are all fairly new and highly rated. At present we are mainly using them to fan in cooler air in the morning and evening and if we do a good job we might only need to cool the house for a few hours a day. I try to be mindful about groceries. I generally buy higher welfare chicken but a lot of beef and lamb is raised on pasture and I chose to buy grass fed whenever I am able. I even have an old family singer featherweight sewing machine. It is quite old. We have a water tank but the pump has died so we need to fix that.
I am trying to eat down the freezers because the refrigerators need to be addressed. One is quite old and the other is over ten years. In the future I think it will be a deep freeze and fridge not two fridges. I am trying to maintain tidiness in the pantries to avoid food waste. Strangely as I have begun to relax about the food supply my mother has begun to worry. For the first time in my life buying tinned food is a weekly thing. How I wish I could have a pressure canner so I could safely preserve things other than jam, tomatoes and dehydrating other foods. Dehydrating has the added benefit of space saving and they are perfectly find for making stocks and stuff. I used last years celery and parsley last night to make bone broth from a chicken carcass.
God bless. If we all do our best then that is fantastic.
It sounds to me as though you're doing brilliantly! Space is an issue for me (small kitchen. shared house, tight storage), so I am limited in what machines I can have. I like the idea of a dehydrator but haven't got one — but I bought in lots of dried veggies. They do come in plastic bags, but they close with a ziplock so at least I can re-use them.
We're also gradually changing over the disastrous replacement windows fitted in our house by the previous owners, back to sash windows which allow the air flow that cools inn summer ·insufficient for your Aussie cooling needs, but adequate for us in the UK).
Like you, I enjoy the old-fashioned things and I love soap. I keep bars of it with my clothes until needed in the bathroom, for the fragrance. x
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