The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
February 2008
The "Green Move"
...part of our Green Ministry
By Toni Marie Sutliff
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We are all familiar with these concepts about
the stewardship of This Fragile Earth, Our Island Home. You've
heard about how the new Episcopal Church Center of Utah (ECCU—get
used to it as you'll be seeing this acronym a lot!) is a green
building. That covers the REDUCE part of the equation, but what about
the REUSE and RECYCLE parts? That is where the OLD office building
office space we left behind comes into the equation.
The ECCU office wing features offices with large windows on both sides
of the offices utilizing natural light.
Did you know that
when you remodel or vacate a space, just about every part of the old
space can be reused or recycled? Unfortunately, most remodeling contractors
and their clients are unwilling to bear the cost of dismantling the
space in such a way that items can be reused. They also don't
bother to separate the material that can be recycled. Dragging large
dumpsters of building material to the dump is cheap in the short run
but very expensive when we consider the ultimate costs to the environment
and society.
Your Diocesan staff was adamant about not filling up our
landfill with the flotsam and jetsam of our recently vacated space.
Using Recycle Utah in Park City as our technical guide, we found homes
for most of the stuff left after our move. Members of Centenary and
Hilltop United Methodist Churches and the staff of Pinecliff Methodist
Camp spent several days disassembling and carting off the built-in
cupboards, bookcases, countertops and work surfaces to be used in their
spaces. The office furniture we did not need in our new space went
to other churches and to Deseret Industries. Much of the beautiful
carpet found homes and the rest was stripped out and taken to a recycler.
Old carpet is used as filler in products such as concrete and is also
burned to create heat and energy. The light fixtures (cans, track lighting,
chandeliers, sconces, florescent fixtures, emergency lighting, exit
signs) went to homes or to a contractor who will reuse it, as did all
of the baseboards and crown molding.
As this article goes to press, we are in the process
of negotiating with a contractor to take the suspended ceiling system
(mostly for recycling) and the office doors and interior windows.
We
have even taken off the switch plates and outlet covers! The only thing
we did not have the time to recycle is all the sheet rock and wiring
that the new tenant is having torn out to move walls.
You can be very
proud, not only of the new green building, but of the way our old space
was demolished. It was a labor-intensive process. We will receive some
monetary return for our efforts, and will spend money making sure we
did our share to REUSE and RECYCLE our leavings. The net result is
worth every penny.
If you would like information on how to recycle
building products or other items, please contact Toni Marie Sutliff,
Diocesan Minister of Finance.
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