Original story posted on the The Beat (internal newsletter).
A four-week e-waste pilot collected 64 kg of electronics, almost the weight of a washing machine.
Old phones, laptops, chargers and tangled cables added up to a big environmental benefit during Fraser Health’s recent e-waste pilot at Central City.
Over four weeks, staff were encouraged to bring in personal electronics they no longer needed.
By the end of the pilot, staff had collected 64 kg of unwanted electronics, including 89 phones, tablets and laptops, an iMac and 30 kg of mixed electronics, cables and chargers.
This was a unique opportunity for staff based at Central City to support our corporate sustainability goals through personal actions,” says Christianne Taylor, coordinator, Office Operations. “We are pleased with the success of this project and will continue to look at opportunities to support our sustainability goals.”
Re-using and recycling the collected electronics helped avoid 1.18 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, equivalent to driving a car from Vancouver to Mexico City. The pilot also recovered precious and rare materials, including 3.1 kg of copper, nearly 1 kg of cobalt, 115 g of lithium and 4.4 g of gold. Mining the same amount of copper would require about a tonne of ore.
Fraser Health partnered with Sphere Recycling on the pilot and is now exploring opportunities for similar collections at other sites.
Thank you to everyone at Central City who searched their drawers, untangled old cables and brought in electronics they no longer needed. Together, those contributions created a meaningful environmental benefit and showed what could be possible across Fraser Health.
