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Community Outreach and Education: Recycling Old Unwanted Electronics and Helping Schools Purchase More Efficient Alternatives.
The Tech It Away program successfully engaged students, teachers, members of the community and Best Buy staff to work together to keep harmful e-waste out of Canadian landfill sites while raising funds for school electronics and eco-conscious student led projects.
Each year, more than 270,000 tonnes of computer equipment, phones, TVs, stereos and small appliances accumulate in Canadian landfills where they leak toxic heavy metals and harmful chemicals into our soil and water supply. Best Buy, as one of Canada's fastest-growing specialty retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics felt that they were in a unique position to help address the growing problem of e-waste. Best Buy approached Summerhill in 2009 to utilize our experience with environmental events and knowledge of electronics handling and disposal to develop and execute a unique e-waste take-back program. This program needed committed partnerships from various community groups and businesses including: schools to participate, recycling partners, community support and corporate buy-in
Together, Summerhill and Best Buy developed Tech It Away, an innovative environmental and educational program, to engage students, communities and Best Buy associates. Tech It Away provided the infrastructure and incentives for Vancouver and Toronto schools to have a one-day electronic recycling campaign in their communities. Residents were invited to drop-off their unwanted electronics for free recycling at participating schools. Best Buy awarded $10,000 to each participating school, in recognition of their environmental efforts, to purchase new, more efficient alternatives. The school that collected the most recyclable electronics received an additional $2,000 from Best Buy to fund a student led eco-conscious school project. In 2009, the event ran in three Vancouver and five Toronto high schools. Due to overwhelming success, the program ran a third time in 2010 at three new Vancouver high schools.
Collectively, the three Best Buy Tech It Away events have successfully kept 125,798 kg of e-waste out of Canadian landfills; that is almost 19,000 items of unwanted electronics. Best Buy and Summerhill were able to educate thousands of people about proper recycling through in-person interaction at school sites and Best Buy's flyer ads. Students, as co-organizers, also had a great learning opportunity to develop leadership and life skills. Community members that participated in the program were left with positive views of Best Buy as they showed both environmental leadership and a commitment to community involvement. The Tech It Away event also attracted several media outlets including Global TV, CTV and CBC radio as well as several local publications.
"The local community came out in large numbers and the feeling of ‘neighbourhood’ that resulted was a very nice by-product of an important ecological event."
– Toronto School Principal
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