Principles of Tech Class Expands Recycling Program to Include Cell Phones
By Abbie Hardesty
November 08, 2007
As an add-on to the recycling program at Olympia High School, the Principles of Technology class has decided to start recycling cell phones as well as paper. The programs sponsor Charlie Chase a teacher at Olympia has not decided when exactly this new addition will begin.
Studies show that there are nearly 10 million outdated and unused cell phones in homes and offices in the United States today. Cell phones are bad for the environment when they are just thrown away and it is often hard to find places to recycle them.
There will be a spot in the science core set up where students and teachers can turn in old cell phones. However, there are no exact details yet on how the cell phones will be collected or how many have been turned in. An incentive for advisories to collect old cell phones is a pizza party.
When asked how he thought the turn out would be Mr. Chase said, “I don’t know. My fear is that we will have to do several promotional type activities to get this program off the ground. I do remember when we started the recycling program about 15 years ago and it took some time and energy to get that going but everyone recycles now.”
Everyone should bring in any old cell phones; yet they should be fully intact. That means no missing backs, no cracked displays, or other problems that make the cell phone unusable.
The school benefits as well from all the recycling that goes on. The money earned from recycling goes into student activities and projects. It is used to buy, “materials like gloves for dissecting, distilled water for experiments, grocery items for biology labs, and other items of this type,” said Mr. Chase.
