We’ve been to over 100 youth meetings, retreats, and camps as attendees, counselors, and worship leaders. There were maybe 5 times when we saw aluminum cans recycled. We can do better.

So we’ve started a new program: Alumination. It’s simple: we want to encourage Christians to recycle aluminum cans. (why) It makes so much sense and it doesn’t take much effort at all. Here’s how simple it can be:

1. Designate a bagged trash receptacle in your youth room for aluminum cans. Note that the cans need to be empty.
2. When it’s full, put the bag in the recycling bin for your church’s trash pickup. Even better, take it to a recycling center or metal company and get money for it!

In Gainesville, FL, we can currently get 72 cents for 1 lb of aluminum (about 33 cans). Doesn’t sound like much, but put it into perspective. According to the World Food Programme, 19 cents can feed a hungry child in school for a day in the poorest parts of the world. What seems like a little money can help a lot of people.

Recycling cans in itself is a great, sensible thing to do. Getting money for it and using that money for God’s work is a huge bonus!

This is easy to do at camps, too:

1. Students often are already divided into small groups, so designate 1 or more groups everyday to be responsible for bagging and taking the cans to a set location. So at the end of the weekend/week, all your cans will be in one place.
2. You can leave the cans for the facility’s recycling or take them in for money.

If Christians around the US do this, the impact would be enormous. And the money it could earn can help people in the US or around the earth.

We want to make this as easy as possible for you. Contact us if you need

• help planning how to make it work at your church or camp
• details on local recycling centers
• information or materials for your church leadership or congregation

Also contact us if you’re going to do it. We want to list all the ministries involved.

Please join us in Alumination. We want Christians around America to see how simple recycling aluminum is and how much good it can do!

note: we’re not encouraging people to drink more soda. it’s a fact that Americans drink a lot of the stuff (on average 380 cans/yr per person), so we just want to do something positive with it.