Sustainable Printing

I attend a rather large church (3000+ attendance every weekend), and I often find myself wondering about the disposing of our weekly bulletins and related inserts.   I was sitting there yesterday, and the bulletin had 4 inserts with notifications of upcoming events and such.  I just had to wonder…what happens to all this paper on Monday morning?

I love the fact that my church often reuses bulletins for the 3 weekend services.  After the Saturday service, there are always collection boxes at each exit for you to toss in your bulletin.  Some people just leave theirs in the pews, but ushers come along and pick those up.  For any that don’t have notes or doodles all over, they get reused for our 2 Sunday services.

I went to the last service yesterday and thought about what would happen to my bulletin.  Well, my bulletin is safely tucked in my purse since I took notes, but what about the hundreds of others that were left behind?  What is their fate?

I called my church this morning to ask what the policy is on recycling the bulletins.  The secretary told me that every Monday, someone sits down and goes through all the bulletins and inserts separating out the neon colored paper and cardstocks (these apparently can be recycled with magazines) from the light weight and light colored paper.  Once the two separate types of stock are separated, they get placed in big recycling bins to wait for pick up from our local waste management company.

I was glad to hear about the recycling efforts my church is taking.  My concern now is about the parishioners that don’t leave their unused bulletins at the church, but instead take them home & throw them away.  Maybe this would be a good announcement to put on an insert.  What do your churches or places of worship do with their paper goods?

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