Notre Dame de Sion Events

The Students Going Green Handset Drive

Notre Dame de Sion kicked off our first ever Students Going Green Handset Drive at 9:38 a.m. Wednesday November 28 at a packed student assembly in the school's gym. Joe Caronia, the Master of Ceremonies entertained the students with a humorous presentation that educated the students about the need to recycle used cell phone handsets and their batteries. Caronia used a PowerPoint presentation to show the students what can happen to our groundwater supply if handsets are improperly disposed of in landfills. He also emphasized the destruction of critical habitats, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by the mining of Coltan, an important ingredient in cell phone manufacture. He pointed out how the Eastern Lowland Gorilla is being severely reduced in numbers as they are slaughtered for bush meat by the Coltan miners in the DRC.

After the presentation the students each took a Tyvek recycling bag into which they will place any used handsets they can get from friends and relatives during the next week. All handsets collected will be brought back to the school by Wednesday, Dec. 5 where they will be collected and sent to a recycling center to be either refurbished or disassembled to collect the chemicals and mineral components for reuse. All the proceeds gained from the recycling of the handsets will be divided equally between the school and the Nature Conservancy, a highly respected conservation organization recognized around the world for its tireless efforts in protecting critical habitats.

The class at the school that brings in the most handsets will win, as a prize, a pizza party.

And... the results are in! The students of Notre Dame de Sion brought in a total of 287 handsets. Here is the breakdown by class:

Freshmen - 121 cell phones

Sophomores - 33 cell phones

Juniors - 103 cell phones

Seniors - 30 cell phones

So the Freshman class with 121 cell phones wins the pizza party!

By bringing in a total of 287 cell phones, the students of de Sion have saved a total of 11,480,000 gallons of water from possible contamination. That equals 28.7 basketball courts filled with 13 feet of water. Way to go de Sion!

You can view the full Students Going Green PowerPoint presentation by Clicking Here.

To view photos from the Notre Dame de Sion Handset Drive presentation Click Here.