Eco Church
Eco Church is a "programme that equips churches in England and Wales to care for creation" - more info can be found here. Through a survey it guides churches to make an assessment in five key areas of church life. These are listed below with a few comments about each one; official resources are available here.
Worship and Teaching
The wonder of creation and related issues often feature in our prayers and we gained an Eco Church Bronze award in 2019 and are now working towards Silver.
Buildings and Energy
We're on a 'green' electricity tariff with 100Green - one of a handful of utility companies with Ethical Consumer Best Buy status. Most lighting is LED, most windows are double-glazed and when it stopped working we replaced our gas cooker with an electric one that has an induction hob.
Land and Nature
We have neat, varied plantings in small beds at the front and to the side of our church - some plants there are attractive to bees, too. Wild plants grow in an otherwise unused area behind our building to the benefit of various creatures.
Community and Global
Most years we have a walk and BBQ in a local village. Church members are also active in various local environmental organisations and publicise their events through the weekly church notices and our monthly church magazine, Contact - both now sent electronically to most people. Eco Tips also feature in the magazine every month to encourage members and other readers to consider their impact on God's creation in their lives away from church.
Lifestyle
We encourage members and external users of our premises to bring for recycling empty/used items that aren't collected by the council. While it keeps changing, at the time of writing the list includes those below (see also the image), the majority of which are TerraCycle schemes. Several schemes pay for items received and we redirect such funds to All We Can, the Methodist relief and development charity.
- batteries
- biscuit, cracker and plastic cake wrappers
- bras*
- cheese packaging
- ink cartridges**
- make-up containers
- Milk bottle tops*
- pens
- plastic bakery bags
- Pringles tubes (metal bottom ones)
- razors and razor blades
- stamps*
- Warburtons waxed bread bags
* - collected for another charity
** - sent to Recycle4Charity