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At a time when most of us are concerned with the state of the earth and the strain on its natural resources, recycling what we can seems a simple and positive thing to do. Locally, both cities have active recycling programs.
College Station residents can leave their aluminum cans, plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard and glass curbside to be picked up by city sanitation crews. Bryan residents can drop off their recyclables at the recycling station in the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot.
Lions Club members have boxes around town to collect no longer needed eyeglasses to be sent to people around the world who need glasses but cannot afford them.
Now, the Texas A&M's Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid and the Veteran's Student Association are teaming up to collect used cellphones to benefit our fighting men and women overseas.
The collection effort is part of the nationwide Cell Phones for Soldiers program started four years ago by Brittany and Robbie Berquist -- then 13 and 12 respectively -- of Norwell, Mass. The phones collected are sold to a company called ReCellular that can either refurbish them for continued use or remove the gold, silver, platinum, copper, nickel, cadmium and plastic to be recycled.
ReCellular pays Cell Phones for Soldiers the equivalent of one hour of talk time for an overseas service member. That money is turned into phone cards the service men and women can use to call their loved ones back home.
Cell Phones for Soldiers already has raised more than $1 million to distribute more than 500,000 phone cards to our brave service members and hopes to raised a total of $9 million over five years.
This is where we come in. A lot of us change cellphones frequently, usually putting the old phone in a drawer or closet. By recycling those phones, we can help the men and women who are serving us overseas.
People on the A&M campus may drop off their old phones on the second floor of the Pavilion. A second drop-off collection point is at A&M United Methodist Church.
The local drive will continue through Labor Day. What a great way to clean out our drawers, recycle and help our troops, all at the same time.
