Responsible Fundraising

Reuse that ipod shuffle or nano packaging to create a set of ipod speakers. You could do this yourself if you were handy with a soldering iron and had a couple of speakers laying around, but here is an easier way:

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/23/bird-electron-ez17-b-ipod-recycling-speaker/

Here is our first “Featured Fundraiser”. The Visually Impaired Students of Pinal County or “VIP” for short have become a model Phoneraiser Partner by getting the word out to their local newspaper as well as setting up collection boxes around their city. The group provides activities and excursions for visually impaired students who would not otherwise be able to participate.

The VIP’s have been a member of phoneraiser since last september. They raised over $100 last year and are on track to receive over $600 this year. Combined with some generous donations from their local lions club, they were able to take trips to the zoo, a historical museum, and a ranch with farm animals.

This group used some good techniques that we believe could be used for any organization trying to raise money through a phoneraiser. The big idea is to get the word out about your phoneraiser and make it easy as possible for people to donate phones and inkjets.

If you would like to donate phones or inkjets to The VIP’s, the following locations will accept them:

Coolidge Chamber of Commerce, 320 W. Central Ave. in Coolidge, Arizona or the Eloy Chamber of Commerce, 305 N. Stuart Blvd. in Eloy, Arizona.

I just came back from a really great vacation up in New York State. The purpose of the trip was to see some family members I had not seen in a few years. The majority of my extended family lives there. Unfortunately, I am not able to visit as much as I like.

I ended up having a wonderful time, but I was also able to get a glimpse into New York’s reputation as the supposed “Home of Recycling”.

New York (or at least upstate New York) has set up a “pay per bag” system of trash disposal where a stamp is purchased for each bag of trash that is set out at the curb. This prompts people to minimize their trash by either recycling, reducing waste, or composting. This is done for a few reasons. Obviously it is better for the environment when fewer disposable one-time use goods are used or are recycled and composting replaces nutrients in the soil that would otherwise be lost in a landfill. Another big reason is that trash is expensive to get rid of, especially in New York. In the late eighties and early nineties, the limited landfill capacity in New York City famously led to barges searching along the eastern seaboard for a place to unload excess trash. 13,000 tons of residential waste is generated each and every day in New York City alone.

Although a trash tax on every bag of trash would be a hard sell elsewhere, it does seem to be forcing people to recycle. There are other ways to reduce the waste stream such as requiring multi-use beverage bottles instead of one time plastic or aluminium or requiring electronics to be recycled. Unfortunately, New York does neither of these (although they do still offer refunds on empties). In fact it’s recycling rates are much lower than the best cities for recycling including San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon. Both of those cities are recycling at a rate of about 50% of total waste with goals to increase that to 75%.

I would suggest to everyone that they take a preemptive step towards being less wasteful by using fewer one time use items such as paper towels, and also by recycling or even composting applicable items.

Our company recycles ink jets and cell phones. These may seem like two completely different things, but we are in an industry that deals with electronic waste recycling. Ink jets and cell phones are just a small part of all of the different types of products that are considered electronic waste. Cell phones, ink jets, computers, computer monitors and LCD displays, TV’s, and even home appliances like refrigerators can all be considered electronic waste. Since technology is constantly changing (have you seen the fridges with TV’s in the door?), new products are purchased and old ones thrown away. All of the toxic chemicals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium that are used to build these devices can eventually end up in water supplies or in otherwise healthy topsoil.

As you can see, Phoneraiser is just a small part of an industry that is trying to solve the worldwide problem of e-waste. There are whole countries that require e-waste to be recycled. Switzerland recycles over 10 kg (22 lbs.) of e-waste a year per capita. Countries that are a part of the European Union are required to recycle at least 4 kg (8.8 lbs) of e-waste per capita.

Currently Phoneraiser is set up to recycle ink jets and phones. Since there are so many different devices that can pollute just as much as phones and ink jets, it is important that people know not to simply throw TV’s and computers in the trash. Most every trash service in the United States is able to deal with e-waste properly. If you have other devices besides ink jets and cell phones, please send them to someone that recycles them or call up your local trash company. If you have cell phones or ink jets send them to Phonereaiser.