Lacree, a Decatur High School student, rocks out on a recycled Guitar Hero controller
The City of Decatur hosted another successful Electronics Recycling event this past Saturday. Volunteers (like the one seen rocking out in the picture to the left) helped us to unload every type of electronics imaginable. Cell phones, cords, televisions, computer monitors… you name it, we collected it. I have never seen such an amazing amount of stuff in my life!
I want to take a moment to give a BIG thank you to City staff and all of our lovely volunteers that helped make the day run like a well-oiled machine. Everyone was so happy and hardworking, and it really reminded me why the City of Decatur is such a great place to live and work.
This event is held twice per year, and is not limited to City of Decatur residents. The main contractor, Bionew, dismantles all of the materials received in the United States down to the bare components, be it plastic, metal, circuit boards, CRT tubes, and any other e-waste/scrap, then the materials are sent downstream for recycling.
Fun story… a woman stopped by at 1:00PM saying that she has accidently given us her cell phone at 9:30AM. I told her that we could look for it, but that there was a very slim chance we would find it. As we looked through the bin, one of our employees realized that the phone had been recovered by another employee who had noticed that the phone was still on. We were able to return the phone, and disaster was averted for a very lucky young lady!
City staff and volunteers helping unload vehicles.
Pallet of computer monitors, ready to be loaded onto the truck.
Boxes for sorting the e-waste.
We had a great morning volunteering with the recycling effort. It is amazing how much STUFF flowed through the site, just like what I have been harboring in the basement for years. I keep thinking that somebody will want this stuff, somewhere… having seen the community’s collective choice to recycle this kind of obsolete hardware, I am committing myself to being very, very circumspect when I shop from now on.