In May of 2023, Kent County broke ground on the last cell available in our landfill. The new 6-acre section is the last of the 105 acres that has been allotted for our garbage. Each year, our landfill takes in about 306,000 tons of trash. As the only active landfill in Kent County, we have piled in over 8 million tons of stuff since the dump was built 1987. But at our current rate of trashing things, this last six acre landfill section will be completely full by 2029.
What is the answer to our growing Kent County trash problem? The best and least expensive answer is that we need to become much better at recycling. According to a trash study in 2022, over 75% of the trash that we are currently throwing away in Kent County could be recycled. We currently have folks that are tossing out lots of cardboard and paper, and 17 percent of our trash are plastics with the codes on them that can be recycled. There are also a lot of things that are being thrown away that are still perfectly good and useful; things that should go to our thrift stores instead of to our landfill. The County has plans to build a huge trash sorting facility on a 250-acre parcel south of our current landfill. This facility will sort our trash for us, but it will cost us. We can help keep those sorting costs down by being more vigilant about recycling everything that we possibly can and by not throwing our clean Amazon boxes and junk mail into the trash to be soiled and smeared with our leftovers from dinner.
It is our call as Christians to recycle. Not only has God entrusted us with the stewardship and the care of this planet, but God is also committed to recycling, personally. –Recycling is how God interacts with humanity. Instead of God throwing away broken people and simply forgetting about them, our God pulls us out, refurbishes us and points us in a new direction with a new purpose. While we tend to make a mess out of our lives, our God does not leave us crushed between broken pieces of drywall and smothered by our plastic grocery bags. Our God pulls us out of all of the crud that we get ourselves into, cleans us up and sets us on a new and better path in life.
May we each work to become recycling people, and live more completely into our call as followers of Christ.
Article in the Rockford Squire Newspaper Feb. 29, 2024
