Since the mid-1980’s both rural and urban communities have initiated recycling programs to deal with household and commercial waste. Fully 76% of Americans now consider themselves environmentalists, encouraging their participation in these programs. Typically American suburban communities achieve participation rates of 80% for curbside pick-up, while semi-rural Madison County alone recycled three million pounds of material in 1998.

Concerns about pollution, global warming and the depletion of natural resources have persuaded many to conserve and recycle. Yet, critics of recycling frequently hide behind arguments from economics and politics: recycling is too costly, or it represents still further government regulation. From a faith perspective consideration focuses on personal responsibility and the common good, as well as patterns of consumption. What moral response can address the disproportionate use of resources by Americans? With only 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. regularly consumes over 30% of the world’s annual resources and accounts for 22% of global emissions. And, according to economist Richard Barnet, over a lifetime a child born in the U.S. will consume three times more than an Italian child, but leave 280 times more trash than a Rwandan child. American Christians need an ethic of consumption.

The three "Rs" of managing waste are "reduce, reuse and recycle." A Christian ethic of consumption would address recycling as a spiritual expression of solidarity with creation and the rest of the world. From a flyer on "Recycling Trivia": "The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle is enough to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours." And, "It takes 95% less energy to make aluminum cans from recycled cans than to make them from raw ore." Part of global responsibility and an ethic of consumption recognizes the stewardship of creation and a fairness about the use of resources. Both reusing and recycling save resources, and hence, make them more available for others.

"To reduce" forms another part of the Christian ethic of consumption. It balances the importance of things. Do people own possessions or do possessions own them? A spiritual question. Consumption aims at completing a person, enhancing a person, making that person whole. Frivolous consumption, conversely, dissipates the spirit.

The Catholic Committee of Appalachia produced an innovative pamphlet called "Powering Down" encouraging a special sacrifice on each first Friday of the month. In keeping with Catholic tradition of Friday as a day of self-denial, it calls Christians to scale back on energy consumption, to do more with less and to live in harmony with creation. An ethic of consumption liberates people of faith from the "must-have" mentality of materialism, while it develops solidarity with the poor and a respect for all created life.