Shredding Event Results Are In!

A big thank you to all that stopped by on Saturday, in spite of the rain, to shred and recycle. We had a great turnout with a nice, steady participation throughout the three hours.

When it’s all over, I’m always curious as to how much paper did we shred and how many electronics were collected. Well, we filled both trucks.

We collected 5.1 tons of shredded paper, which is pretty good considering the capacity of the trunk is 5 tons. This equals 10,200 lbs which is the weight of two 2012 Toyota Priuses and a 2013 Ford Taurus.

As for recycling the majority of the items collected were televisions and computer monitors.  These were taken to a third party recycler, who takes them apart and breaks them down piece by piece.  Each piece is then either sent back to the manufacturer or melted down.  The components that are hazardous are properly handled by the third party company and safely discarded according to hazardous material standards.

As for doing good things for the environment please consider:

• We saved 87 trees. This is a small forest of almost 9 rows with 10 trees per row.
• The landfill was spared 17 cubic yards of waste. That’s 17 containers that are 3 ft sq full of paper.
• Water was saved to the tune of 1,836 gallons. This is enough water to fill a 10 ft in diameter pool to a depth of 3 ft.
• This also saved 510 gallons of gasoline. At a cost of say $2.26 per gallon that equals a savings of $1,153. Money saved is money earned.
• We eliminated the addition of 306 pounds of pollutants to the air. Think about that for a moment.
• We reduced electrical consumption by 53,040 kilowatts. According to the US Energy Information Administration in 2012, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,837 kWh. That’s almost 5 household’s worth of electricity.

The drawing for the 2 – $50 gift cards to Pike’s Fish House in Lansdowne will be announced on Monday the 23rd. Watch for a post at that time.

Mark your calendars for our next one on Saturday September 19, 2015.