Good and Green Tips from 2024

Reducing our consumption of “fast fashion” inexpensive clothing we don’t need made by workers in unsafe, underpaid working conditions;
1. https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2023/11/fast-fashion/ (subscription necessary to read)
2. https://www.thehealthy.com/beauty/news-toxins-in-clothing/
Reusing clothing by purchasing items at thrift stores or donating clothing to places that resell them:
1. 1. The Good Shepherd Rummage Sale Saturday May 11, 9-1 (items can be dropped off Friday, May 10, 10-5)
  2. 21 Best Places to Buy and Sell Used Clothing Online | Conscious Fashion CollectivePoshmark: https://poshmark.comThred Up: https://www.thredup.com/Mercari: https://www.mercari.com/
  3. Some retailers have added a section on their website to allow customers to resell or send in their used products to be resold. Lululemon does this. REI and Patagonia are on this list. Mercari is another site – but that site is only half textile and the other half is household items and electronics. Local thrift stores, churches and rummage sales are where you can always find the best deals, though. Hands down. You can never find a better price than you can locally.
  4. https://www.letsift.com/
  5. https://www.secondserveresale.org/collections/all
Recycling your clothes and other textiles in local donation bins.
1. https://www.mass.gov/lists/donation-reuse#look-up-donation-drop-off-locations-
2. https://www.epilepsy.com/give/donate-clothing-and-household-goods
3. Some organizations (i.e. Red Cross) sell their collected clothes and textiles to a 3rd party business which raises money for the organization. The clothes are sent to other countries or made into rags or insulation. These bins are where you can dispose of your “not as nice” clothing, and other bins are for local distribution- be sure NOT to drop off any stained, torn or otherwise shabby items. Ask yourself: “Would I wear this again?”

Clothing: 3 of them on St. Margaret’s and Cohasset Roads in Buzzards Bay
Clothing and Book bins: Rochester 4 Corners

iii. Books: in front of the Old Bridge Restaurant in Buzzards Bay and at St. Peter’s Church, Buzzards Bay

Red Cross & other Organizations textile recycling bins: Bourne Transfer Station and most other town transfer stations
Nice clothing/Thrift Shops:

Walt’s Mobile Closet at the Gleason Family Y on Charge Pond Road in Wareham
Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene, Wareham
Congregational Church, Wareham Thrift Shop

There is a new drop off shed for used but clean clothing, blankets, sheets, shoes, belts, purses, curtains, pillowcases and stuffed animals behind the Elizabeth Taber Library at 8 Spring Street, Marion. Both new and used items may be donated but need to be placed in tied up bags and not thrown in loose

March 2024 Theme: “Confused about Recycling? You’re Not Alone”

Each town, each state and every private housing development or community has their own rules and even the most “good and green-hearted” person can get frustrated and give up. Below are links to the web sites about recycling for our state and many of the local towns our parishioners come from. If you have more info to share, please let us know!

Recycle Smart MA: https://recyclesmartma.org/where-does-it-go/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgbuBovfahAMVr3JHAR1RLAHlEAAYASAAEgKrjfD_BwE

“Recyclopedia”- Is this recyclable? https://recyclesmartma.org/results-materials/#

Town of Wareham: https://www.wareham.ma.us/recycling-department

Wareham Recycling Center flyer: https://www.wareham.ma.us/recycling-department/news/2023-recycling-flyer

Town of Bourne: https://www.townofbourne.com/recycling-committee/pages/recycling-in-bourne

Town of Rochester: https://www.townofrochestermass.com/trash-recycling

South Shore Recycling Cooperative: https://ssrcoop.info/

Town of Fairhaven: https://www.fairhaven-ma.gov/board-public-works/pages/recycling-center

Town of Mattapoisett: https://www.mattapoisett.net/trash-recycling

Town of Marion: https://marionma.gov/463/Single-Stream-Recycling

February 2024 Theme: Food

To learn more about where your food comes from and how it is packaged and distributed, visit the South Coast’s Marion Institute web page on the components of the food system: https://www.marioninstitute.org/programs/sfpc/the-food-system/
What’s in plant based meat and how is it made? https://earth911.com/food-beverage/how-is-plant-based-meat-made/

How to Eat Less Plastic:
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/how-to-reduce-exposure-to-plastic-in-food-everywhere-else-a9640874767/
and
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the-plastic-chemicals-hiding-in-your-food-a7358224781/

Food Recovery Chart: https://19january2021snapshot.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy_.html
Wasted Food Scale: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/wasted-food-scale

“You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment” on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81133260

January 2024:

Target carries deodorant in cardboard tubes now – push pop style dispenser and Grove Collaborative offers a metal container push up one: https://www.grove.co/catalog/?category=deodorant . Raw Sugar is one brand. So, for sustainable shopping, just check your everyday stores for better containers! They’re coming out with them.

Another Donation Location:
My Brother’s Keeper, 1015 Reed Road, North Dartmouth, right off Route 195 going north at exit 19B.They take in all usable furniture, household items, stuff like that and they give them for free to any family in need who have either lost a home through fire and must start over again or immigrant families coming in to relocate in their first apartment who need to be able to get all the stuff to begin a household. While they don’t go to a donor to pick up items, once a donor brings items to them they donate to the needy for free and also even deliver locally. They also are sometimes in need of volunteers who have pick-up trucks who might be willing to help them deliver a load of stuff to those starting out again in their new location.

Massachusetts junk removal: https://www.gogreenteamjunk.com/ they recycle, reuse and donate 80% of everything they haul. The Green Team is an eco-friendly Junk removal company that prides itself on providing the most environmentally conscious junk removal services in Massachusetts.

Episcopal Church offerings: Our diocese has the Creation Care Justice Network https://www.diomass.org/creation-care the Western MA diocese has a Creation Care team also (Sharing Margaret Bullitt-Jonas with us https://www.diocesewma.org/creation-care ; our Anglican Communion has resources https://acen.anglicancommunion.org/ and our national church, The Episcopal Church has resources too https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/creation-care/resources/