Green Church
The Big plastic Count 2024
23.4.24
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If you would like to remove plastic packaging from fruit and vegetables to help fight the plastic problem, reduce food waste and save money please go to Remove plastic packaging from supermarket fruit and veg | 38 Degrees and sign the petition.
On Monday 19th December 2022 St Matthew's were awarded the Bronze Eco Church Award Certificate. Huge congratulations to everyone involved in achieving this wonderful accolade.
St Matthew's works closely with some of the other Allestree Churches to fight the Climate Crisis.
Their most recent project (October 2022) is this recycling map. You can download it here.
St Matthew's was involved in the Great Big Green week in September 2022. There were different flyers and displays in the Fellowship Room, a Seed Swap and a recycling workshop with the Bin Team from Derby City Council. There was a good amount of interest, especially from families at Walter Evans School.
Refills on the Road comes to St Matthew's car park twice a month (usually on the second and fourth Saturday - the dates are on the diary). Lots of items to buy - all plastic free.
We had an excellent Green Afternoon on Sunday 19 June. Here is the report that was written for the magazine.
Peter wrote this for the magazine before the event:
In the last few months before Covid, a group at St Matthew’s started doing some work on the Environment. On Thursday 6 February 2020 we had organized an evening in the Fellowship Room. I left home my normal joyful self, proclaiming that no one would be daft enough to turn out on a February evening. I had to eat my words when 70 people packed in the Fellowship Room for an evening of talks. We then started a Lent Course on “Caring for God’s Creation”, and met until Covid stopped us. You can read all about them at https://www.stedsandstmatts.co.uk/green-church
Then we had a plan for a Green afternoon in July 2021, and Covid stopped that too.
This year we will have a Green afternoon at St Matthew’s on Sunday 19 June – and let’s hope we have good weather for it! We plan to start at the end of the 10 o’clock service and work through until 4 pm, with displays in the church, Fellowship Room and churchyard.
The youngsters from the Eco Group at Walter Evans School will show us what they are doing to make their school environment a better place, and students from Derby University will be with us – apparently they will be running a hedgehog project. Derby City Council are coming to help us work out what goes in what bin – and perhaps answer those questions about what we can do to recycle some of the things it isn’t economical for them to take.
Refills on the Road describe themselves as “Derbyshire’s first mobile zero-waste shop, stocking 100 staple ingredients plus 38 herbs and spices. Bring your own containers and fill up on foods, cleaning products, and plastic-free toiletries.” They will soon be coming to St Matthew’s car park every month – so we look forward to meeting them on this occasion. Little Wonders are “children’s clothes sold with purpose”. The Derby Repair Café is a project to help extend the life of all those things we so easily throw away. Community Energy will be with us, and we hope to have some more organisations sorted over the next few weeks.
We will have three talks in church – “The wildlife on your doorstep” is a presentation about the Nutwood Nature Reserve (it may be on my doorstep, but I have only walked through it once in the last six years). “Re-wilding” will help us come up with some plans to use our green spaces better. Extinct Rebellion will tell us why there is a Climate Crisis Now, and what we can go. These talks will be at 12.30, 1.30 and 2.30 pm in church – timings on the poster above.
Refreshments will be available, so why not bring a picnic and make an afternoon of it. We will have some family activities available, so it might be a good way of celebrating Father’s Day!
Caring for Creation is part of our God-given task, bringing people together is part of our God-given task, caring for green spaces in our communities is part of our God-given task. We hope to welcome a good number of people, so please come and be part of that welcome
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TEARFUND'S RUBBISH CAMPAIGN PETITION
Our world has an urgent rubbish problem with mountains of plastic pollution but Christians are uniting in global action. Nearly 150 governments are meeting to develop the first-ever global treaty on plastic pollution. We need an effective, binding plan that holds big polluters to account, reduces plastic production, supports the vital work of waste pickers, and ends the impacts of plastic pollution on people living in poverty. Please pray and sign the petition ahead of the next round of negotiations on the plastics treaty in November.
Short video (1 minute 40 seconds) could be shown in churches about Tearfund’s Rubbish Campaign https://vimeo.com/791870301
Sign Petition https://www.tearfund.org/forms/rubbish-campaign-petition
Tips for a greener Christmas 2023, Eco Advent calendar and COP28 (click on the picture)
