The Wayne Green Team has been around for several years now. The Green Team is a group formed by Wayne locals. The team came to fruition by Wayne’s former mayor in 2009. They are a division under the city and they meet monthly to promote their mission of environmental awareness, efficiency over energy saving, and no waste. They are hosting the electronic recycling event.

The group is having two annual events soon that focus on their earth day celebration in April, and in the Fall. The electronics that are going to be recycled are going to a vendor that they have hired out of Omaha called “Data Shield,” and they have helped many times in the past. “Data Shield” is an authorized recycler of electronics.

They break down materials at a processing facility. They can remove the toxic substances of the electronics, ship them to an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) facility, where they are able to recycle components and take care of the hard drive shredding and know that any data on that device will be destroyed.

Their current goal is to recycle “trash” electronics at their two events. They typically recycle 20,000 pounds of electronics. This is their sixth year sponsoring this event. They are currently at 85,000 to 88,000 pounds (43 tons) of electronics that have been diverted from landfills, which is a significant amount. They usually have two 30-foot -long trucks that come and are completely filled from the floor to the ceiling with old electronics and they plan to fill up the trucks this year.

“This is a great opportunity for our community to recycle right, and we appreciate the support of volunteers from the Wayne State College men’s basketball team and women soccer team,” said Sandy Brow, chair of the green team.

If anyone has an old electronic that they don’t use anymore, send it over to the Wayne Green Team.