Our Eco Congregation
The community group within the church have been busy following our successful achievement of a Bronze award - we are already working towards the Silver award and as part of this we held our ‘Big Green Coffee Morning’ on Saturday 26th May. We were able to team this with hosting the Christian Aid ‘Inherit the Earth’ photo exhibition which was a thought provoking addition to the event and carried on all week.
So - what was the Big Green Coffee morning all about? The focus of the morning was not to fundraise, but rather to raise awareness - and specifically about one issue - single use plastics. We have become a throw away society - coffee cups, water bottles, straws, plastic bags, all are used once and then thrown away. There are 1 MILLION plastic bottles purchased per minute worldwide - that’s an awful lot of plastic! If we think about it we may remember to recycle some of these plastics - but many items, such as coffee cups are not easily recyclable and need to head straight to landfill. Even worse of course they are thrown away as litter and pollute our landscape and in many cases end up being washed into the sea.
Did you know that that there are 46 THOUSAND pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean? Its estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
During the coffee morning people were able to not only find out about the scale of the problem, but also do something about it! We were grateful to Sophie Bridger from Plastics Free Scotland for helping us with raising awareness (have YOU sent your postcard to Tesco to ask them to reduce plastic packaging yet) http://plasticfreescotland.org/. We were also pleased to have lots of plastic free alternatives on sale as well. The One World Shop had supplied lots of their recycled and alternatives products and Anything but Plastic had a great stall with lots of plastic free products from metal straws and reusable Keep Cups to shampoo bars and cling film alternatives. https://www.anythingbutplastic.co.uk/
What can you do?
Buy a coffee on the way to work? Take your re-useable cup with you (you often get a discount too!)
Always have a bottle of water? Use a refillable alternative.
Have lots of plastic bottles lining your bath or shower? Replace them with a bar of soap and a shampoo bar
Always buy your veg in a plastic bag? Try buying them loose (Yes even in Tesco! Weight them loose, self-scan and put straight into your reusable shopping bag!)
A straw with your drink? Just say no!
Plastic plates at your barbeque? Try the www.vegware.co.ukalternatives or of course use your usual plates and wash up afterwards!
Plastic bottles of milk? You can get glass bottles delivered to your doorstep! https://www.mcqueensdairies.co.uk/deliveries/is one local supplier
What are you waiting for! Each item of plastic you ditch is one less bit of plastic that will take up to 1000 years to decompose
We are also looking to take action as a church - so watch this space for more news.
Reminder Mass Climate Lobby of Parliament – Wednesday 19thSeptember 2018
Why not join us on Wednesday 19thSeptember for our Mass Climate Lobby of the Scottish Parliament, and speak to your MSPs directly about why you want to see more action on climate change. You’ll be meeting with lots of other campaigners from around Scotland, and be given lots of lobbying hints and tips in advance and on the day.
Find out more and register via our website:
www.christianaid.org.uk/events/mass-climate-lobby
Climate Challenge Fund - How it works - Thursday 27th September 2018 7.30pm
Granton Parish Church have successfully applied for a Climate Challenge Fund grant, have appointed a project officer, launched ‘‘Granton goes Greener’’ in the local community and have an ambitious programme of work for the churchbuildings. Hosted in Granton Church Hall we can hear how the project was planned and benefit from the experience of a congregation managing this type of project.
Meet our new Environmental Chaplain - Rev David J.M. Coleman November date tbc.
A new Eco-congregation Chaplain will be inducted in September and we hope David will speak to the Network in November. The date will be announced after he has officially started.
