First of all, thank you for your continued efforts in recycling!! To date, you have put $111.31 in the adoption fund in just 5 quick trips! Not bad for not even shelling out any coins or cash, right?
As I’ve mentioned before, each trip to the recycling center evokes a different thought or emotion. Something new hits me every time I’m there. It’s as if this is another one of those totally random places God chooses to speak to me the loudest (remember the treadmill in Austin? Yeah, we got a funky-cool relationship going on). For practical purposes, I’m conscious of separating items with “CRV” into specific containers as they yield a higher refund than others. Items must have CA CRV printed on the label which means “California Redemption Value,” meaning the price the recycling center will pay to consumers.
For a couple of trips, that word “redemption” has persisted in my mind as I’ve filled containers and turned in items that can be made into something new—things that won’t be discarded and left as waste, unused for years. Each item has a “value.” A few weeks ago, another friend mentioned this theme as well so that was my validation to continue soaking in it.
Dictionary.com defines “redemption” as the following:
- act of paying off a debt
- deliverance; rescue
- deliverance from sin
- atonement for guilt
- repurchase, as of something sold
- paying off, as of a mortgage, bond, or note
- recovery by payment, as of something pledged
Similarly, this word has specific meaning in the Christian world. Basically, Jesus was sent to the cross to “buy us out” so that we, as believers, are no longer enslaved to sins or Old Testament laws.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” Galatians 3:13
When I think of the redemption of these items, I am reminded that we are made new. Despite anything we’ve done or do, we are made new through that relationship.
2 Corinthians 5:17 comes to mind: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
I pray and think through what will be redeemed in the timing unknown to me but inevitably part of my journey and “our story.” Possibly years of waiting for a family [on both parts of this equation]…redeemed. Pain through the years and process…redeemed. A child’s suffering from past experiences…redeemed. Sacrifice and efforts to pursue financial goals in order to complete this process…redeemed.
I thank you so immensely for coming along on this wild and crazy [and many times, nonsensical] journey!
Love,
Danielle
P.S. I thought I'd list a few recycling facts that I found on the CA.Gov Recycling website:
- In California, nearly 22 billion California Refund Value (CRV)-eligible containers were sold in 2009.
- Of those, more than 17 billion were recycled!
- And the nearly 4 billion that ended up in landfills? You could use them to fill every lane of the entire 770-mile length of Interstate 5...almost a foot deep.
- Since more than 4 billion bottles and cans ended up in the landfill, nobody claimed the CRV on them. How much CRV? More than $100 million worth!
- CRV is 5¢ for bottles and cans less than 24 ounces, and 10¢ for larger ones.
- CRV refunds are available to anyone--consumers, companies, or nonprofits--who returns bottles and cans to a recycling center.
- By eliminating the need to manufacture new products from raw materials, recycling reduces energy use, in turn reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the air.
- For every 10 pounds of aluminum you recycle, you eliminate 37 pounds of carbon emissions from the air.
- For every 10 pounds of clear plastic water or soda bottles, 3.3 pounds of carbon emissions disappear.
- And although glass bottles are a lot heavier, each 10 pounds recycled still reduces carbon by nearly a pound.
- In a landfill, aluminum cans take 80-100 years to break down.
- Plastic bottles hang around as long as 700 years.
- Glass bottles spend 1 million years waiting around to decompose.
