Go Green Team applauds Black Walnut Festival recyclers
Published 7:38 pm Wednesday, October 14, 2026
The Stockton United Methodist Church (SUMC) Go Green Team applauds Black Walnut Festival-goers who chose to recycle and kept about 12 (42-gallon sized) bags of recyclable waste out of the landfill: over 9 bags of de-capped plastic bottles, 2.5 bags of aluminum cans, and about a dozen glass bottles.
During the three-day festival, 20 Go Green Team members and friends set out 20 recycling units across the park. They monitored them, hauled them and the bags of bottles and cans back to church, then sorted and de-capped the collection. They deposited the aluminum cans in the United Methodist Men’s recycling barrels in the SUMC parking lot and delivered the plastic and glass to the city recycling center.
SUMC Creation Care Ministry leader Cheryl Marcum shared her perspective of this free, three-day public service act of discipleship. “As people made in God’s image, whom God gave the job of tending his good creation, we are committed to reducing our consumption and the amount of trash we generate daily. Recycling—reusing materials—reduces the environmental cost to our planet. Every bottle and can carries an invisible backpack of environmental costs, known as embedded resources. Producing plastic beverage bottles starts with extracting and processing fossil stocks which consumes energy and releases greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). Manufacturing plastic resin and forming bottles, caps, and labels uses additional energy which releases more GHGE. Filling and transporting heavy beverage bottles to the final point of sale uses more energy which releases more GHGE. After using a few minutes, bottles and cans may be recycled or thrown away. We are happy to offer the responsible option to recycle. Let’s act like we are made in God’s image and choose to consume less and recycle more. When we recycle, we imitate God’s creation design.”
For the eighth year, the Go Green Team was honored to support the Stockton Sertoma Club by offering this annual recycling service.
The Go Green Team welcomes others in the community who would like to help with this ministry.” More information at https://www.stocktonumc.org/creation-care.
