During their collective 14 years at ԱƵ, the four students who dedicated ԱƵ’s new “Relectronics” station have exhausted the utility of nine cell phones, more than a dozen chargers, and at least a handful of headsets.
Now, thanks to a fall 2009 independent study project by Steffan Pierre ’10 and Megan Cronin ’10 — and subsequent teamwork through the Green Summit — students, faculty, and staff now have a place to recycle their small electronic items, also including laptops, batteries, ink cartridges, CDs, and more.
The research done by Pierre and Cronin showed that larger equipment has always been disposed of legally, safely, and with an eye toward reuse.
“But the university lacked a system for the smaller items that so many students need to recycle,” said Pierre.
In February, a Green Summit working group committed to getting the project off the ground before the end of the school year.
The Relectronics station is located next to the convenience store in the Coop. Once collected, phones and rechargeable batteries will go to the nonprofit Call2Recycle. Other electronics will go to Regional Computer Recycling and Recovery in Rochester.
To christen the new repository, Cronin toted a full shopping bag to the Coop. “I brought my family’s entire e-waste treasury,” she said.
Her contribution included a bit of history: an old modem, an early-model portable camera for a desktop computer, and a 15-year-old microphone that Cronin said “came with computers for free when monitors were the size of mini-refrigerators.
With the new station in place, students won’t have to wait so long!