St. Peter School in Quincy, Ill. has been making some technological strides with financial help from an electronics recycling program.
Last summer, the Catholic elementary school carried out a major upgrade to the wireless Internet system serving five buildings owned by the Church of St. Peter. The upgrade was made possible mainly by tapping into funds generated by the recycling program, which has been in effect at St. Peter since 1999.
Under the program, the school collects donations of old cellphones; empty ink-jet and laser printing cartridges; laptop computers and various small electronics, such as iPods, iPads and MP3 players that no longer work. These items are then boxed and shipped to an electronics recycler known as the FundingFactory.
In return, the school receives points based on its collections. The points can be converted to cash or used to buy new electronic items from the FundingFactory's catalog.