Sustainably Speaking: A Fox Valley Technical College club hosted annual recycling day
GRAND CHUTTE, Wis. (WFRV)- Fox Valley Technical College’s Automation and Electronics Club hosted its annual ‘Electronics Recycling Day’ for its yearly service project centered around Earth Day. They began at eight in the morning behind the D.J. Bordini Center and continued until three in the afternoon.
Organizers said this year was the most successful they have ever had, as there was already a line leading out of the parking lot before the event even began. They were able to collect computer related products, so mice, keyboards and tablets, household items including DVDs, phones and CDs as well as small kitchen appliances. Bulbs, lamps, non rechargeable batteries, larger appliances, lawnmowers and snow blowers were not accepted.
There was no charge to donate items except for TVs and monitors as well as gaming consoles and projectors, as those items needed an extra level of handling. As a charity event, the club received no monetary sum as all proceeds went towards the company tasked with transporting the electronics.
President of the Automation and Electronics Club, Noah Bratz, explains what the club does as part of its yearly community charity event required by the college for each club.
“We set up flyers for the whole community to come in and drop off their old equipment, old electronics to be repurposed, resold, disposed of properly the waste that we gathered that being some of the older monitors and TV’s.”
The club reported that they filled 80 commercial bins worth of items, which totaled six truck loads and over 38,000 pounds of material diverted from landfills. Bratz explains the benefits events like these have.
“Obviously we are not polluting the environment then,” said Bratz. “Some of the items have lead and mercury. Some of the dehumidifiers and other refrigerant we’ve had today contain Freon which is very harmful and needs to be disposed of properly.”
They partnered with a local company, ITAD Logic, to ensure the items were given a second home and the others that needed extra attention were handled properly. Club Advisor Hannah Stoeger details what happens with these electronics next:
“When the electronics leave here, they will sort through them, dispose of the items that need to be disposed of, sort through and take out the metals, sort through that and resell some items.”
Stoeger says this event has been going on since 2012, but had to take a multi year break due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Last year was the first event held post COVID-19 and Stoeger said that event was successful despite underwhelming weather conditions. With beautiful weather this year, the club said it was the best and most successful one so far.
While they do only host this event once during the academic calendar, the club said based on the increased community involvement this year, they will look into hosting it more then once a year.
