Throw away society

I’ve just finished reading an article about Glastonbury 2017. Every year, it’s bigger, it’s better, the acts are more sought after and tickets get sold on the secondary market for more money than before due to the sheer demand. Every year however there is something else that is bigger.
The immense pile of tents and camping equipment that is left behind. The article was about Cornwall Fire and Rescue and the trip they take to Glastonbury, along with a number of charities and organisations, to reclaim some of the thousands of tents that are left behind.

​One could almost understand waking up from a heavy night in 2016, when it’s been raining all weekend, and your tent is half full of mud, and not wanting to take it down without making it more of a mess or even usable again, but I’m still not convinced that gives permission to abandon your tent and leave it for someone else to deal with it.
 
In August we have our own mini version of the same situation when Boardmasters hits Newquay.
Boardmasters wishes to explain in the next few years to be accepting 50,000 people meaning even more tents abandoned in the seaside town.
 
Earlier this week I read another article about such kind of waste, such throw away ideas. This time it was about the number of body boards which are just left on beaches throughout Cornwall. The article estimated around 14,000 body boards are bought and abandoned on beaches every year - just in Cornwall and not including the ones which are swept out into the sea.
 
Why do I feel so impassioned about this?
Because I believe we have a responsibility to the planet we live in.
You don’t need to be a Christian to believe we have this responsibility.
 
For me, I believe I was created by the same God who created this world and as such if he loves me (as I spoke about previously) then he loves this planet and he wants us to look after it. You don’t need to look hard in the Bible for scripture relating to our stewardship of the planet (Genesis 1:26-28, Psalm 8).
 
However, it is easy to see that ‘environmental stewardship’ is not something Christians claim for their own.
Whether you believe the world was brought into being by the word of a ‘Creator God’ or burst into life from a big bang, or whether you believe in ‘Mother Nature’ or we are all here by sheer happenstance I think most people find it hard to come up with reasonable points to say we don’t have some level of responsibility to not be wasteful with our planet and to not look after it.
 
I’d hope those reading this are not the kind who buy a tent and abandon it in a field or leave a body board on the beach for someone else to pick up but there is always something more we can do, be it recycle, reuse or upcycle; to find new ways to limit our packaging, remember our bags when we go shopping (something I awful at) or make sure when we put our rubbish out we cover it up so it doesn’t get attacked by seagulls and scattered across our roads.
 
Until next time.
Lydia Remick (LLM – Reader)

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