To finish off celebrating Earth Month, the STEM club and Women in STEM club partnered up with the nonprofit Teens Against E-waste on Saturday, April 29 to co-host an E-waste Collection.
The event was hosted from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in parking Lot 1 for the community as well as anyone who had electronic junk to dispose of for free.
This is the second year the E-waste Collection Waste event partnered up with Teens Against E-waste, a student-initiated, student-led, nonprofit organization.
For the entire month of April, both clubs and the organization were hosting battery drives and wanted to wrap up the month with e-waste collection.
“So we were interested in helping out because the environmental club did it last semester and we just decided that it would be helpful if we took charge of it this semester,” said Syd Huanie, the president of the STEM club.
The main purpose of these events is to provide an outlet for the community to get rid of any electronics and batteries that no longer work or are not being used. The items that were accepted were laptops, televisions, car batteries, printers, speakers and more.
All batteries collected through the event will count towards the One Million Batteries campaign which aims at collecting and recycling one million used batteries.
However, because the batteries may be hazardous, people were asked to package them separately.
Additionally, there were restrictions on items one was able to bring.
Any light bulbs, aerosol cans, items that contain mercury or anything hazardous were not accepted.
Manasvi Mehto, president of the Women in STEM club, claimed they organized the event in a way that made the drop off hassle free.
“They just come up here, drive around and they just stop their car for a second then we’ll just pick up the e-waste,” said Mehto, “they don’t need to get out of the car, they don’t need to park or anything.”
“The sky’s the limit,” said Syd Huanie, the STEM club’s president, “honestly it’s been really smooth sailing because we have a lot of hands on today.”
Having roughly around 15 volunteers, the event was able to move at a quick and safe pace.
By the end of the event, they officially collected 500-pounds of batteries, as well as 500,000 pounds of e-waste making it possible to fill up two trucks with waste.
With your help, all the e-waste that was collected through the e-waste events, we can help make a change in the environment.
Whenever we discard our e-waste the proper way, we help reduce the impact of the chemicals in our air, soil and bodies.
Once one of your electronics reaches the final phase of its life cycle, continue to be mindful to help make the world a better place.
If you would like to keep up to date for future e-waste events, be sure to check out the STEM club’s and environmental club, as well as the Teens Against E-waste Organization for out of campus events.
