Last Tuesday morning found our family ankle-deep in seaweed as we helped with charity Hope Kitchen’s weekly beach clean in Oban. Adorned in wellies and raincoats (an essential in Scotland!), armed with litter pickers we spent an hour and a half, alongside six other volunteers, combing Oban’s shoreline for plastic and other rubbish washed in by the tide. Our ‘haul’, which at the end of the morning weighed in at 12kg(!), included a broken pair of specs, a lost iphone, some used face masks, numerous crisp packets, bottles, broken up polystyrene blocks…the list goes on, but clearly none of it belongs in our oceans (or on our shores).
As we trawled the shingle and sand beach in the autumn sun my mind couldn’t help but wander to the COP26 meeting taking place 100 miles away in Glasgow; to the world leaders gathered for photo opportunities to kick off two weeks of critical climate change discussions.
It’s easy to feel disconnected from these ‘big issue’ discussions taking place; to feel like we don’t have anything to input into discussions on the future of coal as a fuel, policies around deforestation, or decisions on how to reduce global warming. However, I was reminded in church this Sunday that we all have a remit to ‘tend His garden’: to nurture and serve the world our creator has gifted us, rather than to exploit it. Indeed, this is the mandate given to Christians in Genesis 2.15.
As we read the news reports of the progress (or not) being made at COP26 I believe we need to consider what we can do as individuals to care for the world we have been entrusted with, appointed custodians of. The dictionary defines the word custodian as ‘a person who has responsibility for taking care of or protecting something’. How do we do this?
Our eldest daughter has become the ‘eco-champion’ for our household over the past few months. Inspired by our local zero-waste refill shop, Scrapless, and its recycling corner, she has taken it upon herself to educate and encourage our family to collect and recycle more of the packaging we use. Her diligence means that crisp packets, empty toothpaste tubes, chocolate bar wrappers and other items usually destined for landfill have been carefully sorted and taken to the shop. Even here, during our month-long stay in Scotland she has been looking for ways to ensure we can keep up our greener habits. She was therefore in her element on the beach, knowing she was helping to look after the planet she loves.
Our middle daughter has always been a bit of a magpie – collecting various bits of recycling, and any unwanted ribbon or fabric. She doesn’t see it as rubbish to be discarded, but as materials for her next art project. She was therefore delighted to find that the drinks bottles and other items collected during the beach clean were being turned into beautiful sea creature creations at Hope Kitchen’s Tuesday afternoon craft group.
The group made our enthusiastic girls feel so welcome, and before long there was glitter, glue and paper everywhere! It was lovely to be made to feel so at home. The carrier bag jellyfish, plastic bottle rainbow fish and other sea creatures will be decorating the charity’s Christmas tree next month to raise awareness of the issue of rubbish dumped in our seas, to the wider community here in Oban and the surrounding villages.
It was heartening to be part of this lovely group that gathers people to chat and share life across a craft project. But also, to know that our efforts would help encourage a community to grasp the role they could play in helping steward their corner of the world.
Nature is so much at the core of community, that stewarding it can be really instrumental in bringing people together. Something we also saw in action at Hope Kitchen’s Green Shoots project on Wednesday. Yet again, wellies and raincoats were donned and we all set to work in the beautiful walled garden the charity runs, just two miles outside Oban. Set amidst acres of woodland, with rolling mountains as the backdrop, this giant allotment has a peace that greets you as you walk in through the gate. Welcomed by the cockerel (named Elsa!), who leads the tribe of chickens producing eggs for the Hope Kitchen café, you can see the hard work that many volunteers have put in to cultivate year-round crops of fruit and vegetables.
This garden is a project that brings joy to the community that works within its walls, but also to the broader community who are invited regularly to come and pick produce. It’s a great reminder that we were given land to sustain us, and we can be an involved part of this. As someone who doesn’t have particularly green fingers it was a satisfying morning working alongside each other to clear the vegetable plants that had finished, and turnover the spoil before spreading seaweed out like a duvet so that the soil can rest under it and regain nutrients over the coming winter months. We found ourselves playing a part in the annual cycle of works that is required to tend and care for this garden.
So, after a few days that seemed to involve wellies, raincoats, seaweed and much quality family time we really feel like we have been welcomed into a community that cares for the planet. The projects we’ve participated in have made us think about how we can be better custodians of the land and sea surrounding us – and enabled us to actively make a difference. What personal pledges can we each make for the coming year, to complement those being made by the world leaders at COP26? After all – we all need to pitch in and help!
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