LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM: The leader of the world's Anglicans is hitting the video-sharing website YouTube for the first time on Monday (December 31st, 2007) to preach environmental awareness in his New Year message.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said "God does not do waste," in a message filmed at Canterbury Cathedral in south-east England, and a nearby recycling centre.

The Church of England leader is following in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II, who put her traditional Christmas Day message on YouTube for the first time this year in an attempt to reach a younger audience.

"In a society where we think of so many things as disposable, where we expect to be constantly discarding last year's gadget and replacing it with this year's model -- do we end up tempted to think of people and relationships as disposable?" Williams asked.

"Are we so fixated on keeping up with change that we lose any sense of our need for stability?

"A lot of the time, we just don't let ourselves think about the future with realism.

"A culture of vast material waste and emotional short-termism is a culture that is a lot more fragile than it knows.

"How much investment are we going to put in towards a safer and more balanced future?"

God "does not do waste" and does not regard human life as disposable, Williams said.

"He doesn't regard anyone as a 'waste of space', as not worth his time - from the very beginnings of life to its end, whether they are successful, articulate, productive or not.

"And so a life that communicates a bit of what God is like is a life that doesn't give up, that doesn't settle down with a culture of waste and disposability - whether with people, or with things."

The message will also be screened on BBC television.