Lutherans to give up plastic for Lent

Paul Guggenheimer
Friday, March 1, 2019 3:12 p.m. | Friday, March 1, 2019 3:12 p.m.

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In this photo taken Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, a man walks on a mountain of plastic bottles as he carries a sack of them to be sold for recycling after weighing them at the dump in the Dandora slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

The six-week Lenten period leading up to Easter is a time when Christians around the world give up something.

While Christians commonly give up food or drink such as chocolate or alcohol, the governing body for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in southwestern Pennsylvania wants to take the practice in a different direction this year. It is urging congregations to give up so-called single-use plastics for Lent.

That includes plastic shopping bags, straws, water bottles, Styrofoam and food wrappers that are commonly discarded after being used once.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod’s Church in Society Committee cited a United Nations report estimating that only 9 percent of the world’s 9 billion tons of plastic is recycled. Most plastic, including disposable items discarded after being used once, wind up in landfills, oceans and waterways, including Pittsburgh’s three rivers, the committee said.

The southwestern Pennsylvania synod represents 162 congregations in the region.