Recycle for Soldiers

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY!

In my ongoing quest to support our wonderful military personnel, I was put in touch with the folks over at the "Recycle 4 Soldiers" Program.

Any person or organization can participate in the program which recycles products to raise money for military organizations.  I'm going to let Jackie explain this to you because she's the expert.....

 Let me see if I can be of assistance and answer your questions.  Recycle For Soldiers is a fundraising by recycling program and with its’ sister programs has over 30,000 accounts across the country.  The items listed on our website (ink/laser cartridges, cell phones, laptops, video games, etc) are collected by our participants and sent in for recycling/fundraising.  If the item has a recycle value (again, current price list is on our website) the account receives the listed amount. 

     What happens to the items depends on what type of item it is—for example, ink and toner cartridges are purchased by companies to refill and put back out onto the market (the off/generic brands like Office Depot, Green Cartridge and the like).  If there is not a market for the cartridge to be refilled, the ink jets are put into the plastics bin for shredding and re-use by plastics recyclers.

     The electronics (laptops, cell phones, video games/consoles, etc) are refurbished and put back out into the market or scrapped out and recycled.  These are considered no waste items, meaning no components end up in the landfill, and all are recycled in the US.   Phones are cleared/ and/or sim cards removed; laptop hard drives are wiped/drilled automatically upon processing.

      We are currently receiving over 450 shipments each morning from our various fundraising by recycling accounts and even recycle the cardboard.  USPS drops off hundreds of mailer bags a month.

       Checks are cut once a month for items essentially received the month previous.   Any Soldier is one of our accounts that funds can be directed towards; we have various different ones and can enroll any new ones so that they can start fundraising too.  Organizations ranging from assisting soldiers and their families to care package programs/knitting collectives to send warm scarves soldiers overseas to Civil Air Patrol/Naval Sea Cadets/ROTC Units---we are thrilled to have them on board.  I try to watch for Soldier (and Pet) accounts, as both are my ‘thing’ J  

It's so easy to participate too - I went to the Recycle 4 Soldiers Site, signed up and chose the organization I wanted to support.  It literally took me 1 minute to do that.  Within hours I heard back from Jackie and she made arrangements to send me the shipping labels.   

Hey folks - I get to send this stuff out for free!!  I'm sure everyone has a couple of these items taking up space in a drawer or on a shelf - old cell phones, laptops, video games, digital cameras, inkjet cartridges. Please, take a few minutes out of your day, sign up for the program and put those items to good use.  Our military needs our support and this is so easy to do!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jackie directly at:  

"Jackie Rose" <JDR@accessftc.com>