Contributed photoHOULTON — By all accounts, the Houlton Rotary Club’s recent electronic waste collection event was a smashing success.
According to Mac Randolph, Houlton Rotarian, the goal coming into the event was “to offer the Houlton community and surrounding towns a place to dispose of unwanted electronics free of charge and to keep these potentially environmentally dangerous items out of landfills, dumps and our woods.”
“We asked Rotary for volunteers and got an amazing work force,” Randolph said. “Almost everyone stayed well past their sign-up time. Some stayed from beginning to end. And the work was hard, hauling TVs the size of small cars, air conditioners, servers, printers, you name it, we moved it, sometimes twice.”
Last year, Electronics End left with a trailer just one-third full, leaving expectations tempered for this year’s event.
Contributed photo“Our goal this year was to at least fill a tractor trailer truck with E-Waste by the end of the event,” Randolph said.
Rotarians shattered that goal as the total weight collected was 60,539 pounds (over 30 tons), and total pallets were 152, almost four full-sized 50-foot tractor trailer loads. The Club’s sponsors covered all but about $50 of the expenses.
Those dropping off items were asked to give a small donation to Rotary and the group raised $3,583.
The group’s goal was to start at 9 a.m., but the first car arrived at 8:15 a.m. “We had hoped for about 100 visitors, but by the end of the day, we had unloaded almost 300 cars, pickups, trucks and vans.”
