A Plastic Challenge

Revd Elizabeth Bussmann, our Diocesan Environmental Officer, has produced a calendar (originally for Lent) to challenge us to find ways to limit our use of plastics. Nearly all plastics are wasteful of energy, and nearly all are harmful - epecially single-use plastics that end up in landfill or in the world's oceans. What can we do?

Net Zero by 2030
An Urgent Routemap

The Church of England has produced a Routemap for churches to follow to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2030. This is a very precise 50-page document that is well worth reading in detail. It is overflowing with ideas that have been carefully thought out, though some need adapting to our circumstances in Switzerland.

Tip of the Week

Antibacterial agents have found their way into all sorts of consumer products - soaps, hand disinfectants, shoe inserts, surface wipes etc. Though they may sound like the clean healthy option, they actually kill beneficial bacteria and may promote the development of more dangerous resistant strains.

Do some of our ideas seem zanier than others? Holidaying at home, packing presents using home-made materials rather than expensively-produced wrapping paper, just think about them and they make sense. Last week's tip was to read through your local council's recycling guide.

Your local Abfallhandbuch is packed with useful information, which many people don't think about. What counts as compost, and how do you dispose of it? Some councils accept cooked food and chciken bones, some don't. Some accept tree branches, some don't. How about paper? Often your supermarket packaging has a symbol that tells you if the packet goes in the Altpapier or the rubbish sack, but the recycling guide will tell you what to do with the paper florists put around your flowers, envelopes which are all window and next to no envelope.

Many more things can be recycled than we often realize. Look them up and check them out!

More details (and past tips) on our Tips page. And if you read German, Das Magazin published a useful compendium of ideas a couple of years ago. If you prefer English, The Guardian frequently publishes sets of ideas, too.

Think Tank Sessions

We want to move further on the way to silver – and eventually gold – Eco-Church status. We are starting to meet again in person. Face-to-face discussion can be more useful, though some were earlier hindered from meeting by the Covid-19 situation, and for many of us, meeting in person would involve unnecessary travel, a source of carbon emissions.

If you are not subscribing to our mailings and would like to, please drop a note to ecochurch@stursula.ch.

Some links

Diocese in Europe Environment Page
Church of England Environment Page