Protecting and saving our ailing planet begins with a willingness to make changes. Making a change needs courage. Taking that first step towards change can be frightening, disturbing, or disheartening. Finding the right group of people for support can help one to summon the courage needed to take the leap forward toward empowering change. Dr. Rohany Nayan is the CMGT Education Team Leader. She found her courage to make an empowering change when she met with and then joined the Chicago Muslims Green Team (CMGT).
When Rohany first moved to Chicago in 2017, she noticed two disturbing things about her new home. The first was the ubiquity of homelessness in the city. The second was the widespread mismanagement of unrecycled plastic trash. Her reading on the topic of panhandling in Chicago led her to learn more about the issue of homelessness.
In the United States, it is estimated that there are over half a million of people who are homeless. In the city of Chicago alone, it is estimated that 80,000 people were homeless before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is feared that this number may be much higher during this crisis. Sadly, the management of homelessness too often focuses on managing the problem rather than seeking comprehensive solutions. Homeless people face multiple bureaucratic hurdles. This becomes a formidable administrative labyrinth for those looking for safe, permanent housing. Many end up feeling defeated and resign themselves to living on the streets. Clearly, there is a lot that needs to be done in order to fight the systemic problems related to homelessness.
Rohany’s experience with CMGT has increased her awareness about environmental issues, especially the problems related to the wasteful use of plastic bags. CMGT, through its educational programs, strives to build bridges between diverse communities. By doing this they hope to increase awareness of our ecology, natural resources, and the protection of our environment. This is accomplished by engaging social justice issues while promoting a mindful, sustainable, and eco-friendly lifestyle inspired by Muslim traditions.
Research on plastic bags reveals the love-hate relationship that we have with them. Despite being convenient, durable, and easy to use, we also hate the fact that plastic bags pose many dangers to our environment. According to the WorldWatch Institute’s report in 2004, Americans use and throw away 100 billion plastic grocery bags a year. Less than 1% of these plastic bags are recycled. They tend to clog machines at recycling facilities and are costly to recycle. As a result, they often end up in landfills where they take about 500+ years to photodegrade. Furthermore, plastic bags are also dangerous as they break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and local waterways, and threaten the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
How might we change this situation? Is it possible to change despair into hope? Rohany often turns to her faith as a Muslim when thinking about solutions for problems. In this case, the source of her inspiration comes from this particular verse in the Qur’an:
“Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves,” Sūrat al-Raʿd (The Thunder, 13:11).
The opportunity to make a difference came through CMGT when she took a course offered by the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3), a program of the Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. The C3 Leadership course recruits, trains, and supports community leaders in working together to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods and schools through environmental service projects.
For her final project in the course, focusing on concepts such as rethinking, reusing, and conservation, Rohany designed a project that weaves creativity and upcycling into one mission – to conserve, crochet, and care for neighbors and the environment by making PLARN (plastic yarn) sleeping mats. From November 2020 until April 2021, participants in this project will collect recycled plastic bags and transform them into useful, comfortable PLARN sleeping mats that hopefully will warm hearts and bodies.
The PLARN sleeping mats offer comfort and cushioning as they create a barrier between the cold and hard ground and one’s body. Additionally, one can easily clean their mat by hosing it down and leaving it to dry. A PLARN sleeping mat retains one’s body heat while sleeping and most of all, provides a cleaner way of sleeping as bugs do not like plastic bags. Each PLARN sleeping mat takes approximately 700 plastic bags to make and saves those bags from our landfills. The PLARN sleeping mats are useful and are needed especially by our local neighbors who may be experiencing homelessness.
Rohany hopes to make a positive impact on our planet and neighbors in need. Through this PLARN Sleeping Mat: Conserve, Crochet, Care project, Rohany brings together diverse community members of ages 5 to 100 in raising awareness about conservation, the dangers of plastic bags and keeping non-recyclable plastic bags out of landfills. This project aims to make 100 plarn sleeping mats This means saving about 70,000 plastic bags from landfills, lakes and waterways!
Our ailing earth and our neighbors need our courage to make necessary changes possible. Rohany wants to be a mindful Muslim and calls on everyone to be a “mindful” individual who practices mindfulness where one develops greater attention and care for actions, thoughts, feelings, and inner states of being and avoids israf (wastefulness). It is important to remember that we are NOT separate from nor are we unaffected by our surroundings. We need to welcome and embrace practices that have neither negative impact on our environment now nor in the future. A reminder from our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) who said, “Should you wish to act, ponder well the consequences. If good, carry on. If not, desist” (Ibn al-Mubārak).
For more information or to participate in the PLARN Sleeping Mat: Conserve, Crochet, Care project, visit our website.
