“Blessed are they who reduce what they consume, re-use what they can, and recycle what they no longer use.” ~Father Ed Eschweiler, author of Observe, Judge, and Act: An Introduction to Christian Ecology
Did you know that St. Paul’s United Methodist Church significantly helps the environment?
Throughout the community it is known that the St. Paul’s Thrift Shop will help to find a home for the items that are donated. Does this mean everything donated finds a home? No, not everything finds a second home. But this does not mean that it automatically gets thrown out.
Unfortunately, all donated clothing, linens, and soft goods cannot be sold to a second home. Some are torn, stained, or not appropriate for re-sale. In this case, the St. Paul’s United Methodist Thrift Shop volunteers try their best to ensure these items are not placed in a landfill.
On a weekly basis an average of 30 large kitchen bags of clothing, linen, etc. are provided to a recycler to repurpose for a multitude of other uses. This means that those 30 bags, or 360 pounds, do not end up in a landfill. This adds up: our Thrift Shop ensures that the environment is spared the burden of 9.4 TONS of clothing and soft goods each year!
If the community plans to provide clothing that is known to be rag material, we appreciate having the donation bag labelled as rags. This helps the workload on our limited number of volunteers.
What else?
There are donations of furniture, metal, baby items, and other items that cannot be sold or do not sell to the clientele of the Thrift Shop. The Thrift Shop keeps much of this out of the landfill, too. Some go to other thrift shops, some to the Ecumenical Lay Council Food Pantry, and some to different recycling centers.
Alas, there are some donations that have no other place to go than the garbage, but our volunteers work hard to minimize that fate. St. Paul’s is very environmentally conscious.
