Resource Stewardship Taskforce and Recycling Program

Point Loma Nazarene University
San Diego, CA
Church of the Nazarene

In 2003, when Point Loma Nazarene University student Celeste Howe returned from a semester spent studying abroad in New Zealand, a country of untouched natural beauty and rare reserves of unspoiled wilderness, she was inspired to begin a campus-wide recycling program at her San Diego school. At the same time that Howe was campaigning for a recycling program and environmental advocacy to students and professors alike, Richard Schult of the University’s Physical Plant was exploring contract options for recycling companies, and an English professor who’d spoken with Howe about the program, Phil Bowles, further appealed to the Faculty Council, the Cabinet and the President. The school readily assented, and created PLNU’s first Resource Stewardship Taskforce, co-chaired by Schult and Bowles, to carry out the program in accordance with one of the school’s core Christian values: the stewardship of resources. Howe was hired by the school’s housekeeping and events department to design and implement a program of comprehensive, single-stream campus recycling.

The program adopted by Howe and the Religious Stewardship Taskforce (RST) showed immediate and stunning results -- cutting the school’s waste by 50 percent in its first year -- quite likely due to the great number and diversity of University community members who have joined on to help.

Among the RST’s membership are administrators, including the University President, the Chaplain, the Director of Residential Life and the Director of Community Relations; faculty from the departments of Biology, Philosophy and Theology, Communications and Literature and Journalism; student representatives from the student’s association, recycling team and activist nominees; and staff representatives from the departments of Physical Plant, Grounds, Wellness Center and Custodial and Events Services. Members with such a broad range of backgrounds, specialties and perspectives were all brought together to take part in the stewardship of creation, an active expression of faith and thanksgiving that they say gives them a better understanding of their role as the body of Christ.

In addition to their day-to-day stewardship and conservation activities, the RST organized a University creation care week to run in conjunction with Earth Day celebrations. They have sponsored creation care chapels, and made a motivational documentary film on recycling as a report on the recycling actions underway and an appeal for involvement from the student body. Since the initial implementation of the program, RST members have broadened both their vision and knowledge base by visiting local food co-ops, interfaith energy groups and environmental fairs and reporting back to the group about innovations in energy conservation and co-generation.