Today, we are meeting with Russ Kiesewetter at Oldham County Recycling Center to learn how this Oldham County handles their e-scrap to keep this dangerous waste out of landfills.
Do you know that we keep our soil, groundwater and waterways protected by keeping e-scrap out of landfills? Did you know that the chemicals in e-scrap can cause cancer and also Alzheimer's disease?
Did you know that by reusing, refurbishing, reducing e-scrap, we can protect fellow citizens' health?
Most importantly:
Recycling e-scrap could create jobs! E-scrap recycling can provide an income for counties, an income that could provide the funds to facilitate recycling programs!
In the US, every 2 days, 1 million cell phones are discarded.
If recycled, 1million cell phones equal:
-35,000 pounds of copper
-772 pounds of Silver
-75 pounds of Gold. (equal to 310 Million Dollars per year!)
-33 pounds of Palladium
This is a lot of valuable commodity that can be saved and reused in valuable ways.
We could protect our environment, our health by keeping harmful substances from polluting our water.
ONLY 50% of Kentucky's 120 Counties offer any type of e-scrap collection/recycling program, including drop-off programs or peridic collection events!
KENTUCKY FALLS BEHIND MANY OTHER STATES!
For example:
In NC, 99.4% of citizens have access to e-scrap recycling and NC collected over 20,000 tons compared to Kentucky only collecting 2, 296 tons!
WE NEED CHANGE!
The Kentucky Heirs are working on finding ways to successfully address this issue.
Please stay tuned on what we have planned to make a difference to protect our environment, protect fellow citizens' health and provide funding while creating new job fields in our Bluegrass.
We need to put our minds to work, find ways to educate the public, work on finding ways to partner with retailers and especially with manufacturers to create a more circular economy as well.
We, the Kentucky Heirs, have been working on educating the public, creating educational programs for schools in Kentucky, worked on I-device drives in partnership with EcoCell, met with government officials to learn and gain insight of their perspectives- and we will meet with interested legislators who are supportive of our efforts.
We are in this together! We are unstoppable!