Good Riddance! Electronics Safely Recycled by Los Altos High

It's easy to be green.

That's the message the Associated Student Body at tried to spread when they hosted an e-waste environmental service project and invited people to recycle their electronics earlier this month.

"It's a good service for the community, because they don't always know where to take this stuff," said Principal Wynne Satterwhite. "It think it's been a huge success."

In a six-hour period on March 5, nearly 500 cars pulled into the school's driveway to drop off everything from irons and microwaves to televisions and computer monitors, copy machines and hard drives. At least two truckloads of junk was hauled away by Green Mouse, an e-waste recycling company from San Jose.

According to Sybil Cramer, the green projects adviser to the student body, LAHS is one of three high schools in Santa Clara County to have received a "green" certificate after the school completed a 16-page checklist.

"In every category, LAHS achieved," said Cramer.

The members of the student body's green team promoted the event heavily before that Saturday, and their efforts paid off, as they averaged 83.3 cars per hour.

"It's a great service," said Doug Limbach, the parent of a freshman at LAHS, from Los Altos. "It's a great service they are providing, because you save up the electronics to dispose of safely here."

But after hours of people dropping of their electronics, the event took on another dimension. It became more like a mausoleum of not only technology's past, but of Silicon Valley's too. There was everything from old tube televisions still mounted on wood consoles to flat screens, hard drives to laptops. The region of innovation, which spawned the need for many of these electronics, now has also created a lot of this junk.

"It's amazing what people would come and drop off," said Satterwhite. "We've become a real throw-a-way society, but luckily [Green Mouse] will recycle everything."