Inner West Schools Embrace Recycling Challenge

School students across the Inner West have won accolades for collecting mobile phones for a national recycling campaign known as ‘Roots & Shoots’ that aims to have a global environmental impact.

The mining of Coltan used in mobile phone production results in clearing of essential habitat in areas like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and drives the bush meat trade, both of which are having a devastating impact on the Great Ape population located in Africa.

Inner West Council administrator Richard Pearson said empowering students with this campaign to take direct action on so many levels of recycling and conservation is a truly great initiative.

“The participation of all the schools in programs such as this is a shining example of the partnerships that our education system can enter into which can do more than teach our children about global issues, but also have a positive impact,” he said.

“I was extremely impressed with the commitment of students across the Inner West Council area to the program including at Leichhardt Public, Kegworth Public, PLC Sydney and Orange Grove Public.

“Thanks to the efforts of Leichhardt Public students alone in collecting the most phones of the 75 schools in Australia that took part in the program in term one, 17kgs of mobile phones have been diverted from landfill and the materials in them, including Coltan, have been salvaged to reuse.”

The recycling education campaign was a collaboration between the Jane Goodall Institute Australia’s (JGIA) Roots & Shoots program and MobileMuster, the official recycling program of the mobile phone industry in Australia.

Mobile Muster promotes the campaign as a good example of an industry scheme where the manufacturers and producers of mobile phones are taking responsibility for their ‘end of life’ products.

Recycling of mobile phones by students in the campaign not only reduces the use of raw materials for product manufacture but has additional greenhouse gas saving benefits.

Inner West Schools Embrace Recycling Challenge

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