05/15/2021
The Brunswick News: Precious Plastics to focus on conservation -
"A group at First United Methodist Church believes that some of the things we dispatch to the landfill in our household garbage are precious.
The church’s environmental task force wants to organize a Brunswick version of Precious Plastic, an international organization that collects plastic and turns it into usable quality products. The members of the team, Kathryn Schiliro, Toby Eisentraeger and Alexandria Dickey Tipton are hosting an organizational meeting at the church May 22 to get others involved in their stewardship project.
Schiliro said inspiration to do something came during one of the church’s Wednesday night suppers when she realized the many foam cups would be tossed into the trash to be picked up by the garbage trucks.
“I looked around...” she said, “and thought we could do better.”
To do better they want to establish a “recycling universe” in the community using the free tools from Precious Plastic, the organization that began in the Netherlands nine years ago and is now international.
Eisentraeger said the plan is to follow open source methodology that Precious Plastics provides free of charge from start-up kits to instruction in building a variety of machines to shred plastic and then press, extrude and inject it to produce quality products.
Precious Plastics got its start in 2012 when Dave Hakkens began working on it as part of his studies at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. He released Version 1 of his recycling machine during his graduate show in 2103. The following year, three people independently replicated the machine showing the potential.
Hakkens and increasingly larger teams have worked on subsequent versions all the way to Version 4, and have given it all away through preciousplastic.com to anyone who can use it.
“It’s purposely created to be shared,’’ Eisentraeger said.
The recycling equipment does not remotely resemble the machinery found in heavy industry and that means it can be used on a smaller scale.
Before they get started, the First Methodist team must identify a number of stakeholders to carry out the separate steps from collection to shredding to production. The three said they have no idea when they can even begin collecting plastic, but they hope to know more after the meeting.
Eisentrager said not all plastic will work, that some give off contaminates when melted, but that those in very common use such as No. 2 and No. 5 will work. Those thin-walled water bottles that get thrown away are made of No. 2 plastic and milk jugs, detergent bottles and other containers are made of No. 5.
The focus should be to decrease plastic consumption and reuse everything you can, they said.
One thing that will make it work is for the responsible to sort their containers before recycling them, Eisentraeger said.
Formerly, everything was thrown together for export and sorted overseas with cheap labor, but the cost of labor has increased.
“It’s not a viable business model anymore,’’ Eisentraeger said.
But how does the work of the “green team’’ at First Methodist fit into the gospel?
Because, they said, believers have a covenant with God to care for his creation that is reflected in the United Methodist Church’s disciplines.
The Bible says in Psalms 24: 1, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;”
The United Methodist Book of Discipline notes that stewardship has long been an issue and says, “too often we have treated creation simply as a resource for humankind’s use.”
The church’s Social Principles says, “All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings.”
We are now seeing the consequences of our failures to serve as caretakers of God’s earth, it says, and adds, “United Methodists are called to a ministry of reconciliation between God, humankind and creation.”
As a ministry, Precious Plastic is a start on such a reconciliation, but Shiliro says it will extend beyond the faithful.
“You don’t need a faith base,’’ she said. “We want everyone to participate. You just need to care.”
The meeting is at 10 a.m. in church sanctuary at 1400 Norwich Street in Brunswick in downtown Brunswick. There will be free childcare for children 4 and younger. The meeting will also be broadcast on YouTube.
Those who wish to attend are asked to register at https://fumcbrunswick.com/precious-plastic-meeting
The ‘green team’ from Brunswick First United Methodist Church with the action plan they sketched out to start a community recycling program called Precious Plastic. Show are Kathryn Schiliro, from left, Associate Pastor the Rev. Bill Culpepper, youth minister Alexandria Dickey Tipton and Toby Eisentraeger."
Source: Terry Dickson/The Brunswick News https://thebrunswicknews.com/life/precious-plastics-to-focus-on-conservation/article_fa7798f6-aac7-5764-a2a6-08b2ddcd02cf.html
