FIRST Electronics Recycling

[Beth Sweet]

Team 116 is participating in the Virginia pilot of this program. If you are interested in working with us because you're outside of the Virginia area, shoot me an email or pm, and I can get you more info.

[pschre]

Team 806 has been using ThinkRecycle for over a year now. They take ink, toner and laser cartridges as well as cell phones. Pre-paid shipping, and we earn a little cash for each item on their long list of accepted products. I believe they also plant a tree, somewhere, for every 24 items sent in. The only downside is that we can only request payment after we reach the $25 mark or thereabouts, and at a few cents per item, we haven't yet.

So if you want to strike out and get your team involved in an e-cycling drive before FIRST institutes their own, you could start looking there.

[environeer01]

Something that our team is planning to use is http://www.gazelle.com/ which is another organization for the purpose of recycling technology. This site takes a wide variety of electronic devices, and we are planning to do a drive around the school to collect old electronics.

Hope this helps.

[Phoenix Spud]

There are also some "green" companies online that sell green products. You can register with them, and when someone buys a product and says that you referred them, you get a portion of the proceeds.

Hopefully FIRST will make the e-cycle program worldwide at some point for all us "international" teams.

[Alex Cormier]

So...

What happened?

I haven't found anything about it on the FIRST site anymore. I did previously and can't seem to find it now.

Must have taken it all away for a reason...

[Shmee]

We use Call2Recycle. They take cellphones and batteries, and maybe some more of the usual stuff. They've been great about working with us, particularly since we set up an agreement with them that the money from anything donated by FIRST participants or really anyone that we passed out collection bags with FIRST stickers on them goes to GeorgiaFIRST.

I'm sure that other states could probably set up something like this too...

At any rate, here's the website: http://www.call2recycle.org/home.php?c=1&w=1&r=Y

[Cynette]

I've found that in most areas there is a company available to do recycling of small e-waste items and give the proceeds to a charity of your choice. One in the Rochester, NY area is Imagine It - Fundraising through Recycling. http://www.imaginerecycling.com/index.php They focus on printer cartridges, cell phones, PDAs, MP3s and other mobile devices. They have collection points through much of western NY and are reliable and consistent with their donation tracking.

When I heard of FIRST's e-recycling project, I envisioned that it would be for used computers and other electronics as well. What I have learned through the recycling efforts of my own company is that most recyclers of electronics cannot consistently generate enough revenue off of the large electronics to make them viable as a fundraiser. CRT monitors and old TVs still are high cost items and generally offset the revenue generated from other items, especially in the ratio collected in community collection events. If that is what FIRST was trying to get established then I would guess they have found the same results in their test market.

[AdamHeard]

We deal with a company in California called Ewaste (real original name). Twice a year we publicize an event, they show up with a 48' trailer, we fill it with stuff the public brings that day, and profit. We usually earn $1000-$1600, along with siphoning off a lot of electronics the teams/our kids can use (decent computers, monitors, BIG Tv's, old gaming systems, ipods...).