Diana Bishop

(Marquette, Michigan) - The Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge is in its biggest week with help from interfaith groups and American Indians in reaching the goal of one million pounds of electronics and one million pills. The EPA issued the challenge to Great Lakes basin residents participating in over 100 projects that are collecting pharmaceuticals, electronics and household poisons. The EPA awarded grants to some of the projects. Interfaith groups are involved in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. An EPA grant helped start the non-profit Earth Healing Initiative (EHI). Trust between religions and interfaith environment projects are vital to protect the future of the earth, said a Lutheran bishop, who has participated in numerous Earth Day recycling projects. 'We are in an environmental crisis in many ways,' said Lutheran Bishop Thomas A. Skrenes of the Northern Great Lakes Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 'The Great Lakes watershed is really a kind of a mother to all of us here in the upper Midwest.' The EHI involves American Indian tribes and 'a coalition and partnership of churches, synagogues and other faith traditions joining together and sharing their projects and resources to heal, protect and defend the environment,' said founder Rev. Jon Magnuson of Marquette, Michigan. The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (MITW) is holding a curbside pickup of electronics for members during Earth Week, April 21-24. Over 1,000 pounds of electronics have been turned in at the MITW transfer station since April 1. The College of Menominee Nation hosts pharmaceutical/electronics collections on April 22. On Friday, April 25, students at the tribal K-8 school are picking up litter and cleaning up the a reservation community. Students recently created 'Garbage Monsters' out of bottles other items found in their trash, said Diana Wolf, MITW Solid Waste/Recycling Coordi