"But waste not by excess: for Allah loveth not the
wasters." (Quran 6:141)
One question that has puzzled me since I took shahada
20 years ago, is why I don't see the Muslims recycling
their garbage. Surely, there are exceptions, but I
continue to be completely baffled by the general level
of environmental disregard. I would have thought that
in 20 years, we would have made more progress in terms
of our consciousness about the burden we put upon our
fellow citizens to cope with our daily waste.
Recently I was visiting an Iraqi family for dinner.
When I inquired why they preferred to live in America
even after the political situation had stabilized back
home, they told me that Iraq is a terrible place to
live because it's full of garbage. After dinner, I
watched them stuffing a huge bag full of trash from
just one meal! I asked them why they don't make use of
the government trash recycling services, now that they
live in a country that has curbside pickup. They said
they had no recycling bin. I told them you just call
the City and they will give you one. They said it
didn't matter because they had a neighbor who hauls
away their trash for them so that they don't have to
pay the garbage removal fee. I was truly shocked.
Their friend is hauling away their garbage for them as
a favor, and they don't have the decency to reduce
their amount of trash? Even though recycling is free
and garbage dumping costs money? As I was leaving, I
noticed that they actually did have a recycling bin in
the garage. It was being used to store baseball bats
and other sports equipment. I started feeling
resentful, like they came to my country just to fill
it with garbage! They've been here for ten years,
their children were born here. At what point will they
start caring about their adopted country enough to
recycle their garbage? Don't get me wrong, they have
many good qualities too.
The Muslims' hesitancy to recycle their garbage is all
the more perplexing, since one of the most popular
dawah pamphlets continues to be the "Environment and
Islam." It points out Quranic verses such as, "Do no
mischief on the earth, after it hath been set in
order" (7:56), and applies them to the scientific
concept of maintaining a balanced ecosystem. This
appealed to me as a young person who was terrified by
dire predictions that due to environmental pollution,
there would not be enough oxygen to sustain human life
on earth within 50 years. The threat of impending
planetary doom put the fear of God in my heart and
made me want to live more consciously.
When I was a child, there was no recycling. Recycling
services are something that ordinary citizens and
environmental organizations worked and fought hard
for. It began with volunteers collecting recyclable
trash at various church and school parking lots.
People who recycled were often belittled as ridiculous
idealists, but they kept struggling and striving to
slow the steady stream of trash into our landfills and
trash incinerators. Eventually, citizen pressure
resulted in recycling programs in many cities.
When Ann Arbor, Michigan got its first recycling truck
I was 18. I enthusiastically volunteered on the truck
for one day, hauling bottles and newspapers from the
curb. I gained a lot of respect for all trash
collectors, as every muscle in my body hurt at the end
of the day! Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last
speech in support of Memphis Tennessee's sanitation
workers, where he compared their importance to that of
doctors, because society relies upon them to protect
us from disease. Recycling reduces the amount of
rotting material by separating the clean garbage from
the gross garbage. Composting food scraps in the
garden reduces the amount of rotting waste even more.
Yet, recycling is done by just half of Americans
daily, and 13 percent don't recycle at all. Research
points to apathy and lack of convenience being the
main reasons people neglect their civic duty to reduce
their human footprint upon the earth. In many cases,
confusion about what can and cannot be recycled plays
a large role. Education and peer pressure seem to be
the keys to compliance.
Pride in home ownership might also go a long way in
sculpting attitudes about garbage. In my neighborhood,
the streets where most people are renters are usually
strewn with garbage while the streets where most homes
are owned by their inhabitants are usually clean.
People who identify with and value their property are
more likely to pay attention to the mess that their
garbage creates. Yet, even if we rent an apartment, we
can cultivate an attitude of pride in our town, our
country, or our planet.
People who don't recycle often feel like their efforts
don't make a difference. It may be that people with a
strong sense of self-worth might be more likely to
believe that even a small contribution to the
recycling bin could be meaningful. Immigrants who feel
like it's fine to pollute America because it's not
"their" country should be encouraged to participate in
the communal health of our country as a matter of self
esteem, and as a baby step towards civic engagement.
Every community usually has at least one concerned
individual. This person should help make recycling
convenient at the local mosque or Islamic center by
obtaining recycling bins and encouraging people to use
them. The City will generally have a list of the types
of items they accept that can be printed out from
their website. Posting these instructions near the
recycling bin might go a long way towards reducing
confusion.
Youth groups could play a large role in educating
parents and creating peer pressure to recycle. We are
fortunate enough to live in a country where we have
curbside recycling. Those communities who don't have
it, should lobby for it. This could be a great way to
join a cause and cooperate with your neighbors about
something that helps everyone.
Feeling like we are part of a community makes us want
to recycle our garbage because of the way our garbage
makes us look. It's embarrassing when you have a huge
pile of trash outside your house on garbage day and
your recycling bin just has a few newspapers. At the
same time, caring about the environment can help us
feel connected with others and provide opportunities
to work within our community on issues of mutual
benefit.
Either way you look at it, recycling is a win-win
solution for society that goes beyond the immediate
material concerns of trash removal.
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