Wasteful modern life-are we sinning?

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Does anyone else feel terribly guilty about all the waste we produce?
It bugs me if something is recyclable and has to go in the trash.
It bugs me if something I bought must become garbage eventually like a rug for instance.
Going to fast food places is disturbing , seeing all the plastics and foam pile up.
I know this is a problem in modern life since we are on the go and there are scientists working on solving this problem.
I am trying to pray about it but it is getting a bit OCD! Wonder if anyone else has this concern ?
I know I can only make a small difference singlehandedly.
 
Yes maybe if I get involved in some kind of environmental group I would feel like I am helping.
Unfortunately I have to comb through groups who are pro-abortion population control enthusiasts.
If anyone knows of a group that is Christian in its approach I would love to hear about it.
thanks very much!
 
The encyclical Laudato si encourages us to recycle, carpool, take short showers, turn off unused lights and limit the amount of food we cook because a lot of food gets wasted.
 
Simple living has deep roots in Christianity.
Look at monks and nuns.
If there’s no group that suits you start your own!
 
I think it is certainly something we need to reflect on. Consumerism is the cultural air we breathe, and so it is difficult to escape and it is difficult to view it in the proper perspective and in an objective manner.

Sometimes I look around the house and just imagine that literally everything in the entire house—even the possessions I prize the most—will most likely be in a garbage heap in 100 years from now (or far sooner).

Although recycling is a good thing, I think we also need to take care that it doesn’t cause us to be even more wasteful consumers. Sometimes, I feel like we can assuage our consciences when we buy things we don’t need by telling ourselves that we can always recycle it later on down the line. “I can pick up that extra large Pepsi from the McDonald’s drive thru because I can just recycle the cup, so it doesn’t make a difference.”

Even apart from ecological concerns, I think we don’t do ourselves any favors by living an unchecked life of always consuming. Virtues like temperance are overlooked, and it becomes easier and easier to focus on fulfilling our passions rather than spending time on God. Our attention is fixated on the things of this world that are passing away rather than in storing up treasure in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy.

To what extent we are sinning in these areas—I think we need to discern that for ourselves. We don’t want to be scrupulous about it, but we also want to be good stewards.
 
You make a good point about being too scrupulous. (It is hard to live in the USA and not consume once and done items . Every where we turn we are handed water bottles for instance) Will concentrate on being a good steward and living simply as suggested. ANd Praying that the world comes to see the plastic problems AND scientists come up with a solution for it too.
thanks everyone!
 
Scientists might. Apparently there are plastic-eating bacteria out there that have just been discovered.
 
I do. I very much do.

I have no answers, just commiseration. You’re not alone.
 
It’s not bad that observing how we ourselves live bugs us.

“We” as in “my own” (I me mine) treatment of resources, how we I use time, how I fail to serve the people that God puts me near every day to help.

We need a seamless view of creation, mostly focused on how we ourselves spend what God gives us.

It can turn into a collective guilt and that’s a problem, because it then becomes a bit more abstract, and distant, and “not my problem” in subtle ways. It really become a bit more “over there”, and when it’s over there it relieve us from fixing our own self. It becomes “society’s problem”, it becomes the awful “fast food industry”. It becomes big and abstracted, just like the devil likes it.

He wants us focused on world hunger, while our own child is suffering from a poverty of our coaching or encouragement or listening.

We can turn glum and sour and anxious.

God doesn’t want us to be anxious or glum…He wants us focused on serving Him.

The “big” problem can become too big and then we just whine about the big problem and not realize that our son needs help on his homework.
 
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One thing that’s always made me think a bit about “sell all you have and give the money to the poor”.

If somebody isn’t materialistic enough to buy your stuff, you don’t get any money to give to the poor.
 
I give stuff away, actually. And I don’t mean to Goodwill.

I give it to the Airman’s Attic here on base (our junior enlisted pay is atrocious), women’s shelters, that sort of thing.
 
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I was actually reading an interesting reflection on minimalism across cultures and generations. Most of us now know if we wait until we’re sure we need something, we can still get it.

Now many of us see time and space as more valuable than stuff.
 
Well, I agree. My husband and I are appalled about the plastic waste, which is by the way the main problem together with airpollution the future will be confrontes with. The fact plastic lasts for centuries or longer…There are so many alternatives already for plastic. If everyone did a little more for this planet we could have a future. I think it is a terrible sin to be careless with resources. We were made stewarts of this world and when I look around or at our rubbish bin I feel compelled to cut down even more. Lots of people could do way more as in don‘t use one way cups in coffee shops, reusable bags (cotton bags) etc. I think governments need to force people to do the greater good. It seems here in the UK they will ban cotton buds and plastic straws…
 
I think we all have to do something to help protect the environment, however we can easily get overwhelmed with all that needs doing.

Our parish is doing CAFODs Live Simply award, and trying to find ways to at least there be a bit more aware of how the parish can help to environment.
 
None of that jazz bothers me half as much as the amount of food wasted in the west today while elsewhere people starve. I’ll never be convinced of anything by the environmentalist crowd who will go spend $30,000 on a brand new Prius which created a huge environmental footprint rather than saving money by buying a much better used luxury car which has long paid off its footprint.
 
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Golightlyholly said:
It seems here in the UK they will ban cotton buds and plastic straws…
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Here in Washington State in some places you get paper straws. Somewhere in Seattle I got a biodegradable one made out of plant fiber.

I’m totally willing to pay a few cents more for things if the money pays for that. Or don’t even give me a straw at all if I’m not doing takeaway.
 
DignumEtJustum said:
None of that jazz bothers me half as much as the amount of food wasted in the west today while elsewhere people starve. I’ll never be convinced of anything by the environmentalist crowd who will go spend $30,000 on a brand new Prius which created a huge environmental footprint rather than saving money by buying a much better used luxury car which has long paid off its footprint.
Click to expand...
I’m off brand new cars and brand new clothes. I go to thrift stores and get three or four year old cars with extended warranties. I don’t know how much of a difference it makes but it can’t hurt.
 
DarkLight said:
Most of us now know if we wait until we’re sure we need something, we can still get it.
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I’m not sure that previous cultures (at least in my lifetime) bought stuff out of a fear that it wouldn’t be there when they might need it.
More like, some people are just thing-happy.
I’ll cop to being in the group that gets a kick out of “things”. I’m the kind of person who can be fascinated looking at a plumbing fitting. I’m currently trying to clean out and downsize.
 
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