Local E-Waste Event Sets Another Record

Area residents, businesses, schools and government agencies recycled their obsolete electronics in record numbers in 2011, “E-rase your E-waste” event organizers reported last week.

“We’ve topped all of our previous collection events,” Jackie Couture, local “E-rase your E-waste” Committee co-chair, said. “There were more participants and more electronics recycled than ever before.”

In particular, the group’s new summer month, mini-collection events attracted a lot of participation this year, Couture and fellow e-waste committee member Butch Renders said, which means they will likely be continued in the future. The standard 3-7 p.m. collection hours for those events also appeared to aid participation, Couture said, explaining “We’ve held early collection events before, although just in August, but they were held over the noon hour and didn’t draw as well as this year’s events.

Couture reported that a total of 334 individuals, businesses and organizations brought e-waste to this year’s collection events, including the four summer month mini-collections and the final weekend collection held Sept. 9-10. “That’s a record number already and then they recycled nearly 60,000 lbs. of e-waste – or 59,630 lbs. to be exact – another record amount,” she said.

Altogether the program collected more than 410 monitors, 432 CPUs, 219 printers, 204 televisions, 102 phones, as well as hundreds of other items, organizers said.

Luckily, the group had lots of help with the events, Renders noted. “The Richland County Solid Waste Department let us use their shop space again this year for all our events,” he said. “And they also let us store the e-waste there until it could be picked up, which we appreciated very much.”

Renders and Couture thanked all the volunteers who came out to unload, load, palletize and shrink wrap the items, and applauded the Richland County RSVP program as a major supporter of the effort. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” Renders said. “Every year they arrange to have volunteers available for this event and a lot of the same volunteers return year after year.”

“We also had some new faces this year,” Couture added. “Several members of the Sidney High School Key Club helped at a couple of our summer events, which made a big difference, so we want to thank them, too, as well as all our other volunteers.”

A number of local businesses also stepped up again to provide pallets, cardboard, shrink wrap and promotional support to aid the effort, Couture noted. They included Sidney Health Center, Sidney Sugars, Anchor Drilling Fluids, Richland Opportunities, Inc, and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. “Our thanks to them,” Couture noted, adding “We also had a couple of businesses from Williston provide pallets this year, so we want to thank them as well. They were National Varco Oilwell and NAPA Auto Parts.”

“Of course, a big thank you to our e-cycler, UNICOR, which allows us to provide this service free of charge to local residents,” Renders said.

“All in all it was another great year,” Couture noted.