How a simple prayer for the earth turned into a one-of-a-kind recycling mission
NORMAN, Okla. (KFOR) – The Styrofoam just keeps coming.
Stacked, sorted and categorized, it’s the lightest of material, but a heavy burden for Cathy Bowden who once lifted a prayer for the earth at University Lutheran Church.
“So this is a the Styro-Station,” she says walking into a converted office now stacked high with used Styrofoam. “The table full is one week’s donation.”
Her answer revealed itself in the container for her takeout breakfast.
“We, especially, pray for the earth,” she informs us.
After the prayer time ended, they all had a meal served in Styrofoam containers, “at which we filled a 60- gallon trash can with Styrofoam. The hypocrisy of it all was just too much.”
The idea of recycling something like Styrofoam sounds good, but the devil lies in the details of what recyclers have to do to perform the job.
“It’s amazing,” Cathy assures us. “You have no idea.”
Cathy and her church ‘Green Team’ have to sort the stuff.
She recruited environmental clubs at both Norman High and the University of Oklahoma to get it all washed properly.
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Styro-Home is the name of the club at OU headed by Braelon Palmer.
“What we do,” he explains, “is place boxes around campus for collection.”
Bowden also wrote for a grant to buy a machine mounted on a flatbed trailer.
“It basically runs on an 8-horsepower lawn mower engine,” he explains.
Cathy shows us a long tube of concentrated plastic and further explains, “this is what we make in densifying.”
It’s called a ‘densifier’ which Cathy’s husband Doug now helps run as often as once a week.
Her all volunteer organization, which now includes several other churches, is the only one like it in the state chewing up Styrofoam and reducing it back to thick logs of plastic good for making more Styrofoam, flooring, or even lawn furniture.
Her promise involved more than she ever thought it would, but it proved a picture of stewardship at its recycling best.
“It is a mission,” she insists. “It’s God’s project. We are simply using our hands to do His work.”
To learn more about University Lutheran’s Styrofoam recycling program, including pickup locations and densifying, go to their website.
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