One of the first big projects St. Andrew's Environmental Stewardship Team wanted to tackle was getting rid of all the styrofoam in the church. This felt like a monumental task for a

megachurch, long before there were compostables readily available. The first order of business was to provide receptacles for sorting the variety of waste from an event. Members of the team wrote grants and worked with Washington County and the waste haulers to come up with the three-bin sorting receptacles that are now found all over campus: Recycle-Organics-Waste.

Once those were in place, it was time to tackle the Styro-Beast. We took the time and effort to show the congregation what the weekly waste looked like coming from our church each and every week - bags and bags and more bags of mostly Styrofoam cups from the coffee service after church. It was ugly! The team initially provided the extra funds required to switch to compostables, until the upgrade was written into the church budget. Eventually, the switch was made, and we haven't looked back! It has spread from cups to bowls and then plastic cups and more. Eventually, we realized that we needed to address the vendors bringing waste onto our campus, The attached vendor requirements have been developed by the team with the church staff, and we are making our way towards being a zero waste facility that we can all be proud of!

Here are the community guidelines St. Andrew's created around zero waste.

Submitted by Laurie Windisch