Cell Phone Collection A Big Success

SEBRING - A total of 480 used wireless phones and accessories were collected in Keep Highlands County Beautiful's recent "Wipe Out Wireless Waste" drive.

"I thought it was an excellent response," Sherri Cooper, director of the Highlands County affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, said about the eight-week cell phone recycling drive that ended May 31.

By dropping off old cell phones at 24 collection points around the county, residents put Keep Highlands County Beautiful in the running for a grant of up to $5,000 in the Wipe Out Wireless Waste contest, sponsored by Sprint and KAB.

While the recycling drive for the contest is over, Cooper said, her agency will continue an ongoing collection of used cell phones for recycling.

"We need to keep them out of the landfills because they can contaminate the environment," she said.

Cell phones turned in for recycling are sent to Sprint, which refurbishes some for re-use and takes re-usable components out of the rest, Cooper said.

Refurbished cell phones are often distributed by social service agencies. Components of old cell phones can be reused for the manufacture of products ranging from jewelry and copper plumbing pipes to automotive bumpers and dashboards and rechargeable battery packs.

Cooper said people can drop off their cell phones for recycling at the Keep Highlands County Beautiful office, in the Highlands County Recycling Center, 6000 Skipper Road.

To promote its Wipe Out Wireless Waste Drive, Sprint and KAB offered two financial incentives to local agencies. Cooper secured the first, a $500 grant for Keep Highlands County Beautiful, by being among the first 100 of KAB's 1,000 affiliates nationwide to sign up for the drive.

Among those 100 affiliates, the 10 which collected the most used cell phones during the drive will be awarded grants up to $5,000, Cooper said. The competition is based on the number of cell phones collected compared to the population of the county.

For convenience, Cooper said, old cell phones can still be dropped off at the 24 locations that had drop boxes for the Wipe Out Wireless Waste drive.

The drop boxes have been removed, Cooper said, but employees at those locations can accept an old cell phone, call her, and she'll be glad to pick it up for recycling.

Those locations are: the Highlands County building department, zoning department and tax collector's office, Highlands County Extension Office, the Avon Park and Sebring public libraries, Sebring Chamber of Commerce, Sunshine Staffing, Heartland Board of Realtors, McLure and Lobozzo law office, SFCC's community relations department, Highlands Independent Bank North, Highlands Independent Bank Sun 'n Lake, Sebring Fire Department, Heartland National Bank in Sebring, Home Care Solutions Group in downtown Sebring, Remax Realty, Highlands Today, Seacoast National Bank in Lake Placid, Lake Placid Town Hall and Police Department, Pamela Karson, PA, in Lake Placid, Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce, and the town of Lake Placid warehouse.