Christianity and Composting

11/28/2011 22:23

Our environment affects us in countless ways. We breathe air refreshed by its plants. We drink water from its streams. We eat plants grown in its soil and animals that feed off those plants. And when these things become polluted, we get sick and even develop diseases.

We’re stuck with the earth, for better or for worse. When we make decisions that affect the earth, we’re making decisions that affect our own welfare and that of those around us.

Environmental decisions really are people decisions.

Jesus talks about Hell more than a few times. But the word Jesus uses that we translate “Hell” isn’t actually what we usually think of when we think of Hell.

The word in Greek is “Gehenna,” which was the name of a garbage dump with some very ugly history in Israel. It was very unclean, and I don’t mean dirty. Bodies of executed criminals and slaughtered animal remains rotted there. It was even the place where children had once been sacrificed in pagan worship. It was where a good Jew should never go.

“Hell” was a garbage dump.

In Jewish writings before Jesus, Gehenna became a symbol of God’s judgment—a place no Jew would ever want to go.

In the United States, we are consumers. It’s our lifestyle. We consume resources and then make waste with them, like giant earthworms that live to eat and poop all day long… except our poop tends to be significantly more toxic than earthworms’.

Our landfills are swelling. Leaky, smelly, toxic garbage dumps are growing just outside our cities, just out of view (and smell) so we don’t have to remember they’re there.

Jesus taught us to pray “…Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” but, with each truckload, we’re making it a little more like Gehenna on earth instead.

We let pile up our junk, and it releases methane and even more toxic things into our air, water, and soil. But for better, or for worse, we’re stuck with this earth.

Did you know yard trimmings and kitchen waste make up 27% of all waste in the United States? These harmless, potentially good things, when mixed up with the rest of our waste and just buried, end up becoming toxic and produce methane, a major greenhouse gas and water contaminant.

Now, I’ve never been one who “goes green” for the sake of being “green.” I’m not an “eco-freak,” though I know and love some of them and respect what they do. But… I do care about people. Jesus seems to as well, best I can tell.

Stopping all waste seems a little idealistic and not very practical. So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that. But we can reduce our waste. That's doable.

So maybe reducing our waste is one of the many ways God calls Christians to care for people in physical ways.

And an easy way to reduce our waste is to compost.

Basically, composting is combining dead plant waste (like yard trimmings, dead leaves, my pet hedgehog’s used pine bedding, etc…)“ with “green” waste (like bread, fruit, and vegetable kitchen scraps) and water in some sort of bin.

The waste all breaks down together and decomposes into a super-rich soil-like substance called humus (not to be confused with the tasty brown paste I love on pita). Humus can be used as fertilizer and a potting soil supplement for growing gardens, houseplants, and other things. It helps filter out toxins in soil and helps dry soil (like the clay soil here in KC) hold on to water and nutrients.

Composting uses the natural way God created for waste to bring nutrients back to the soil. So, if you do it right, you’ll have to buy a lot less potting soil and fertilizer for gardens and potted plants.

Now, I used to think composting was for people with farms and large plots of land. I live in an apartment in the city and don’t really garden much. Thus I’ve long written it off as not practical.

But… I have since found that there are easy ways to make nearly odorless indoor composting bins that function just as well as outdoor ones.

So it really doesn’t matter where you live, whether you own your own house and yard, or you live on a 5th floor apartment, it’s possible to compost.

But do you want to know one of the best—and most self-serving—benefits of composting in the city?

In a city like KC, where a house can only put out two garbage bags each week before being charged a fee for additional ones, composting could help keep your bags down to two (or less). That makes a lot of sense.

Make a good people decision and try out some Creation-care by composting. You might just find it saves you some money and it will definitely help make an unknown many people a bit healthier.

For more info on composting and how to do it yourself, here are a few helpful links:

Written by Pastor Jon Falkenstein

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