Truckloads of electronics

In June, PennFuture staff in Wilkes-Barre organized our third electronic waste pickup in our office building and others in the downtown area. PennFuture played a role in supporting Pennsylvania's landmark electronic waste recycling law in 2010.

In conjunction with Luzerne County Department of Solid Waste Management Coordinator Beth DeNardi, and alongside the great work of our building staff, we promoted the collection to tenants in five buildings. Thanks to Cititower, LLC, our landlord, we were able to use building storage space that became packed with the response.

The collection resulted in 15 overflowing pallets of used electronic items that will be recycled instead of going to landfills. Participating organizations included: Cititower, LLC and Humford Equities, which both provided great work by their staff; Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Northeast Regional Office; Bohlin, Cywinski, Jackson; Fairchild Semiconductor; and Rosenn, Jenkins and Greenwald, in addition to individual participants.

Photo above: First row: Cheryl Nudo, administrative support, Fairchild Semiconductor; Pam Fendrock, web and outreach coordinator, PennFuture.

Second row: Berit Case, recycling coordinator, DEP Northeast Regional Office; Kate Gibbons, outreach coordinator, PennFuture; Tim Dougherty, building manager, Cititower, LLC. Not pictured is Ed Tomchak of Humford Equities.

2nd photo: Early in the e-waste collection, these items filled one full room. The pile eventually flowed over into multiple rooms. 

Kate Gibbons is northeast Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture. She is based in Wilkes-Barre.