The Green Task Force is hosting a film night on Friday, August 22.  The documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?  Someone Pulled the Plug” will be shown.  The film is about electric cars, hybrids, hydrogen and the future of transportation.  The event will be held in the Fireside Lounge starting at 6:30 p.m.  If you have any questions, please contact the church office at 714-544-7070.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you;

and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?

In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

(Job 12:7-10)

God’s creation is ours to care for.  With this in mind, earlier this year the session decided that Tustin Presbyterian Church should place a greater emphasis on environmental conservation.  To facilitate this intention, the session adopted five of six covenants designed by California Interfaith Power and Light (http://www.interfaithpower.org/covenant.htm):

• Educate our congregants on energy production and usage in relation to global warming.

• Conduct an energy audit of our buildings to identify sources of energy waste. 

• Make energy efficiency improvements to our congregation’s buildings. 

• Analyze, reduce, and offset our greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of becoming a     non-polluting congregation. 

• Support public policies that contribute to our goals.

The session created the Green Task Force to find ways to reach these objectives.  The task force members are: Helen Anderson, Loretta Herter, Bernie Jeltema, Pam Roeth, and John Turner, with our pastor, Dr. Rebecca Prichard presiding.   

Because the Tustin Community Preschool uses TPC facilities, the task force was able to get a grant from the California Preschool Energy Efficiency Program.  With this grant, many improvements have been made at our church.  The main air conditioning units have been checked and adjusted so they run in a more energy-efficient way.  About 150 incandescent lights were replaced with fluorescent bulbs.  The ballasts and fluorescent tubes of 214 lights have been changed to a new type that is about 40% more efficient and lasts longer.  Motion sensors were installed in bathrooms and the office Xerox room, so that lights turn off when a room is not in use.  The grant covers 80% of the cost for this work, and we expect to recoup our 20% of the cost in less than a year with lowered electric bills.

Also, the task force placed baskets in the narthex in which to deposit used Bulletins for recycling.  “Green Tips” have begun to appear in the Bulletin and the Parish Press.  New recycling bins have been placed in our facilities.   The task force is looking for ways to minimize the use of plastic plates and avoid Styrofoam materials at church events, and we’ve discussed ideas to reduce waste in the Church office. 

If anyone has suggestions or ideas to reduce waste or further our conservation goals, please contact someone on the Green Task Force.   Thank you.

We have new, wheeled, recycling bins provided by CR&R, our Tustin trash service.  Anyone using the kitchen is asked to separate recyclable from waste items.  Look for the colored sign taped to each bin  for a list of items that can be disposed of  in that  bin.  Please note also the black boxes labeled for “cash redemption (CRV) cans & bottles only”.  These will be picked up by our recycling partner, Sean, from Foothill Continuation School.

All other waste, such as food, food stained paper items, used paper hand towels, waxy cardboard, dishware, cellophane wrappers, non numbered plastics, etc., go into the current black trash bins for placement in the dumpster.  The goal:  to decrease waste, and increase recyclables.  A big thank you to those who are already following these new guidelines in the TPC Kitchen!

Reusable Grocery Bags

Consider the following statistics, quoted by the reusable bag manufacturer, 1 Bag At A Time:

• The petroleum in 14 plastic bags could drive a car 1 mile.

• Americans use over 14 billion plastic bags annually.

• It takes 70% more global warming gases to make a paper bag than a plastic bag.

Every time you use your bag for shopping or wrapping, you'll help preserve our environment.

$ Saving Green Tip - Hidden Toxics

Americans drink more water carbonated in soda than they drink plain from the tap.  The following information on a favorite fizzy beverage is condensed from "Stuff, The Secret Life of Everyday Things."

A cola drink contains:

• high-fructose corn syrup from Iowa.  A milling plant used water, enzymes, acids, heat, grinders, and centrifuges to turn corn kernels into starch and then corn syrup.  Making syrup is the second largest use of corn in North America.  

• citric acid and flavor concentrate, a secret recipe containing flavors, preservatives, caffeine and artificial coloring.

A bottling plant combined these ingredients with:

• water, first

• then with carbon dioxide, made from fermented corn from the same Iowa corn-milling plant.

The aluminum can containing the cola weighs 15 grams, about half an ounce.

• Five of the grams were recycled from melted-down cans and scrap.

• The other ten grams began as 40 grams of bauxite ore strip-mined by huge machines in the Australian outback.  Bauxite mining destroys more surface area than mining any other ore.

The bauxite was:

• crushed, washed, dried, pulverized, mixed with caustic soda from California, heated, pressurized, settled, filtered, and roasted with calcium oxide from Japan.  Forty grams of bauxite yielded 20 grams of aluminum oxide powder.

• hauled as aluminum oxide by a Korean freighter across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S.

A smelter:

• dissolved the aluminum oxide in giant steel pots filled with a bath of cryolite.  Carbon electrodes made from petroleum were lowered into the pots to deliver a 100,000-amp jolt of electricity.  The powerful charge broke oxygen atoms away from the aluminum, forming carbon dioxide.  Few processes are as damaging to the global climate as aluminum smelting. 

• is so energy intensive that aluminum earned the nickname "congealed electricity."  Making a soda can uses the energy equivalent to a quarter-can of gasoline.

Ingots of aluminum from the smelter were trucked to a mill where each thick ingot was pressed into a thin, rolled sheet.  At another factory, a press punched cups out of the sheet, then other machines stretched the cups into cans, trimmed the edges, printed a colorful design on them, and applied a protective varnish.  Ovens baked the cans twice.  At the bottling plant, machines filled the cans with near-freezing soda and crimped the tops on.

An aluminum can costs more than the soda inside.  What to do?  Buy drinks in refillable bottles.  Or, drink less soda.  It's just fizzy water, so have some water instead!