Sustainable Morse Park teamed up with Sustainable Applewood and Sustainable Eiber and hosted our 4th annual Metal & Electronic Recycling event on May 11th at Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church at 20th & Simms.
It was a beautiful day and we once again diverted a lot of metal (everything from bent nails to swing sets) and electronic items (those which plug in or run on batteries) from the landfill. 3R Technology Solutions sorts through all of this material and parcels it off to different venders who recycle materials accordingly.
As an example, motherboards (which do not store personal information), are shipped off to Japan where the precious metals are removed for reuse. When the 2020 Olympics were held in Japan, the medals were made from recycled precious metals. It’s very possible that there are medal-winning Olympians from different countries with some of the metal originating from Morse Park!
We collected over 29,000 pounds. That’s almost 15 tons! Historically, we collected 30,480 pounds in 2021, 22,500 in 2022 and 34,300 in 2023.
We counted 595 people in 460 cars. We couldn’t have done it without a great team of volunteers, some who ended up working the entire event due to the large numbers of people recycling from our neighborhoods. We had a bit of a glitch that morning when one of 3R trucks (brand new at that!) broke down on it’s drive to the event so we were short a truck and part of the 3R team. This resulted in creating a “snake” line formation and longer lines than we wished we would have had.
Our volunteers were letting people know the wait time before they got in line and alas, quite a few turned away as that timing did not fit with their day’s schedule. We brainstormed ideas as to how to manage the event differently should such things happen again in the future and so we can surpass the 34,300 pounds we collected in 2023.
THANK YOU to all who recycled and were happy to wait. We also feel an immense gratitude for the generous donations which people gave. Collectively we received $2,705.59 in donations. Of that, we donated $180 back to the Sustainable Neighborhood Network and made a small donation to the church; each neighborhood took home $808.86.
Sustainable Morse Park funds a number of things with the donations we receive from our events including the costs involved with having a website, donating to the church for the use of the parking lot, providing the petting zoo for our community at the Slater Elementary fall festival, membership to the West Colfax Community Association, maintaining a reserve and other miscellaneous items. Applewood and Eiber sustainable neighborhoods use their donations for unique programs in their neighborhoods.
Also…a shout out to Early Dog Coffee for donating coffee and the City of Lakewood for providing burritos for our volunteers and the 3R team! Thanks for supporting our community events!
