LONDON — For Lent, many Christians give up indulgences like
tobacco, alcohol or sweets, or transgressions like lying and swearing. And for
Anglicans, don’t forget synthetic fabrics, wet wipes, and those little boxes
that hold dental floss.
The Church of England
has asked people to add a new culprit to the list of ills they forsake for the
six weeks of penance that begin on Ash Wednesday: plastics. Specifically,
the church wants people to avoid the plastic consumer products and packaging
that have become a
major environmental problem, polluting oceans and rivers, fouling beaches,
killing wildlife and clogging landfills.
“I think it might well
be a first for us, to have an entire Lent program on an environmental issue,
but it is very much an integral part of what the church is about,” said Ruth
Knight, the Church of England’s environmental policy officer. In fact,
environmental stewardship “to safeguard the integrity of creation” is one of
the five
“marks of mission” the church lists in describing its purpose.
The church’s “Lent
Plastic Challenge” arrives on a wave of anti-plastic sentiment and legislation
in Britain and across Europe, as more people conclude that the first element of
the motto “reduce, reuse, recycle” should take precedence. In December,
the European
Union announced binding waste-reduction targets for member nations,
with particular emphasis on plastics.
Last month, a ban on plastic microbeads in cosmetic products took effect in Britain,
and Prime Minister Theresa May’s government committed Britain to a 25-year environmental plan that includes eliminating most plastic waste. Several
big cafe and restaurant chains have recently done away with plastic straws, or promised to do so, and the government of Scotland has
said it will ban them by the end of next year.
In
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, stores must charge 5 pence for each
single-use shopping bag, whether paper or plastic, and the same charge applies
in England for plastic bags at larger retailers. The measure has sharply reduced
plastic bag use, and lawmakers say they want to impose charging more widely
in England.
Last fall, a BBC
documentary series on the oceans, Blue Planet II, which dealt
extensively with environmental dangers, including from plastics, was the
most-viewed program in Britain.
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