St. Michael: A Green Church

During the past two years, St. Michael has taken significant steps to reduce its impact on the environment. We have implemented the following recycling programs:

· We have implemented a church-building paper recycling program. St. Michael now recycles bulletins, Sunday school paper scraps, and card-board boxes. A recycling bin for bulletins is located in the Gathering Room and you may deposit your used Sunday bulletin

there if you wish.

· The food pantry has been recycling its cardboard boxes at the Kroger on Laskey.

· We have also made a commitment to using our china plates and silverware for large fellowship meals, and washing them in our commercial kitchen dishwasher, moving us away from using Styrofoam plates and plastic eating utensils.

· Our pastor and family have committed to an aggressive recycling program at the parsonage.

These measures have resulted in a 50% reduction in the amount of trash being hauled away to the landfill from our dumpster.

St. Michael has also engaged in a concerted effort to conserve energy:

· The ceilings and walls of the parsonage were insulated in 2005.

· Most incandescent lighting in the church has been converted to fluorescent lighting, resulting in a 1/3 reduction in church electricity usage.

· Our 20-year old boilers were replaced and downsized with 2 new high-efficiency boilers in 2007.

· All manual thermostats have been replaced with new programmable thermostats, allowing St. Michael to tightly control when spaces are heated and cooled for occupancy.

These efforts have resulted in about a 30% savings in electricity and natural gas usage, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of our church and helping St. Michael use your financial offerings more efficiently.

If you have any suggestions for further “green” projects at our church, please be sure to drop us a line. We will be glad to take them into consideration.