Snyder ISD has partnered with Western Texas College (WTC) to collect recyclable e-waste products.
The drop-off period was only supposed to be through January, but Carolyn Torres, the Snyder Primary School teacher heading up the project, said that the schools would continue collecting electronic items for recycling for as long as possible.
“We have some more that’s trickling in,” Torres said. “We’re going to try to finish it up this week. We were just doing it for two days, and it’s just still trickling in.”
Thus far, Torres said that they had collected around 150 handheld devices such as tablets, cell phones and remote controls.
She estimated that they would likely end up with over 200 devices.
Torres said that any device with copper wiring inside could be recycled and used in new products, and parts that could not be reused would be properly disposed of so as not to contaminate the earth.
This wasn’t just another collection drive, though.
Students got involved in the effort to raise public awareness.
“We made it a project,” Torres said. “The kids had to do all the advertising.”
Torres said that representatives from WTC came and spoke to Snyder Primary School students and presented the idea that recycling could help solve pollution problems. They tied it in to their Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations about making a difference in the world and left the task of advertising the e-waste drive to the children.
“They researched ways that they could get the word out,” Torres said. “They got to pick the teams that they wanted, where they felt their strength was, whether it was in advertising, construction, where they had to build the boxes for the recyclable materials, or if they wanted to be in television, radio — what types of advertising they wanted to do. Then they broke up in teams, they wrote their scripts or designed their ads and they published them.”
Torres said that Snyder ISD would accept recyclable e-waste as long as it came, though the official final count will be done later today.
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