Wis. School Recycles More Than 6,000 Phonebooks
Waters Elementary School in Fond du Lac, Wis. won $500 after collecting 6,170 phone books in the AT&T Real Yellow Pages Phone Book Recycling Challenge. These directories will be recycled by Waste Management into new phone books and other products.
Elementary students in Wisconsin recycled 6,170 phonebooks. Photo: Dailyvida.wordpress.com
But this recycling contest also has a reuse component as AT&T is providing separate phone books for the winners to build a recycled paper castle at Lakeside Park on June 12. The Waters’ students will also receive Project ReDirectory T-shirts.
This is the first year that AT&T has held a phone book recycling contest in Wisconsin and provided students six weeks to collect as many outdated white and yellow pages as possible. In Fond du Lac, 3,677 students participated and were able to collect 10 tons of directories.
“This recycling program adds to AT&T’s numerous local recycling efforts, and we’re happy to come together with Senator Randy Hopper and local community leaders to be part of the Fond du Lac School District’s and Walleye Weekend’s first recycling challenge,” said Stephanie Byrnes, AT&T area market manager.
Phone books are both recyclable and manufactured with a high percentage of recycled content. In addition to making more directories, they can be recycled into insulation, drywall and other products.
Valerie Rasp
posted on June 4th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Phone books are becoming such an issue, since most individuals now utilize the internet for obtaining contact information. In Southern Illinois, we now have 3 directories for the region. 3!!! Keep Carbondale Beautiful, part of the national Keep America Beautiful, has held phone book collections for the past 7 to 8 years. Each year, anywhere between 15,000 to 30,000 pounds of phone books are collected. (most still in original packaging)