The First Congregational United Church of Christ in Elmhurst will host a Free Electronics Recycling Event on Saturday, September 28th from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. in the church parking lot at 235 South Kenilworth, Elmhurst. The community is invited to clean out their closets and basements to recycle almost anything with a cord or batteries. Accepted items include computers, monitors, printers, fax machines, cell phones, PDA’s, microwaves, TV’s, DVD players, VCR’s, radios, vacuum cleaners and other small household appliances such as coffee makers, curling irons, hair dryers, or toasters. Used batteries and toner cartridges will also be collected. Not accepted are smoke detectors or anything containing Freon or mercury such as air conditioners, dehumidifiers and thermometers.
This event is the latest in a variety of activities sponsored by the church’s “Tree of Life Green Team”. The mission of the team is threefold: 1) to make the facilities of First Congregational UCC of Elmhurst more environmentally friendly; 2) to make our congregation more environmentally aware; and 3) to work with other churches and community organizations to advocate better use of environmental resources. In 2012 the church became the first in Elmhurst to earn their Earth Flag through a program sponsored by Du Page County and administered by SCARCE (School & Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education). SCARCE and the County also helped facilitate this recycling event.
Karen Pachyn, Chair of the Green Team, encourages “the whole community to participate. This is a great opportunity to help make the world a better place by keeping donated items out of our landfills. It’s important we all do our part to make the world greener and with this event, we hope to make it convenient for all our local residents to help do so”.
This is just the latest of many “green” accomplishments for the First Congregational Church over the last seven years since the team was created. The church has significantly reduced energy usage by replacing old light bulbs with CFL’s, eliminated unnecessary refrigerators, put timers on lights, and even changed the font for printed materials to one that requires 30% less ink. They also collect and recycle batteries, print cartridges, and CFL light bulbs on a regular basis and conduct once a year drives to recycle old gym shoes, prescriptions and Christmas lights, among other things. They have a “Green Tip of the Month” in their newsletter and further educate their members with annual presentations such as the one on global warming presented by a gentleman personally trained by Al Gore. They had a presence at the recent Green Fest in Wilder Park and are highly visible at the end of the annual St. Pat’s and Memorial Day Parades every year. Members march with the “Clutter Bug”, a sort of Chinese Dragon made out of recycled materials. Church members yell “feed the Clutter Bug. He eats recyclables” as they march in the parade, picking up bottles, cans and papers from parade goers, reducing the city clean up work required at the end of the parades.
For more information about the Free Electronics Recycling Event or the Tree of Life Green Team, readers can contact the church office at 630-832-2580.