Keshena, Wisconsin - As students plan a hands-on clean up of a reservation community and college classes prepare to collect unwanted pharmaceuticals, adult members of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin have already turned in several thousand pounds of electronic waste.
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, located about 30 miles south of Green Bay, is accepting e-Waste at its transfer station all month plus providing curbside pickup on April 21-24 during the annual bulk items spring cleaning collection.
"We are getting lots of electronics right now," said Diana Wolf, the tribal Solid Waste and Recycling Coordinator.
The tribe's grade and middle schoolers are planning an April 25 outdoor cleanup. On April 22 tribal college students are collecting e-Waste and unwanted pharmaceuticals.
The three projects are among about 37 events planned across eight states for the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The events are being promoted by the non-profit interfaith Earth Healing Initiative that teams numerous faith communities and American Indian tribes with local challenge organizers to be volunteers and participants in the projects spread across the Great Lakes basin.
"The greatest polluter of Lake Superior has recently been identified as a major factory in China," said Rev. Jon Magnuson, founder of the Earth Healing Initiative that received an EPA grant to coordinate interfaith groups and tribes.
"We have atmospheric loading here where contaminants are carried over by wind currents and then deposited in rainfall," said Magnusonas Lake Superior seagulls squawked overhead.
"An explosion of scientific knowledge is pointing to the interconnectedness of everything," said Magnuson, co-founder of the interfaith Michigan Earth Keepers who collected over 370 tons of household poisons, electronics and pharmaceuticals during three Earth Day collections with help from American Indian tribes and 150 churches/temples from nine faith traditions.
"I believe the environmental crisis that we are now involved in is a great tipping point in the church's own evolution of its self-understanding," said Magnuson, executive director of the Cedar Tree Institute and Lutheran pastor. "It is an historic time, it's a tipping point, the church needs to be here."
The Earth Healing Initiative volunteers are working with challenge project organizers in numerous cities including Milwaukee, Chicago, Duluth and the Greater Cleveland Area.
During the first week of April, the tribe's drop-off sites collected several thousand pounds of electronics including 919 pounds of "low-grade circuit boards" that tribal employees remove from TV sets, stereos, high quality computers, cassette players and other electronics.
Wolf estimated that about two tons of electronics will be turned in by the end of April.
Wolf said that the 919 pounds of e-recyclables represents about 100 individual TVs, computers or other electronics.
The circuit boards and other the electronics are sold to a recycler for 12 cents per pound it "contain silver and gold" and wood from the electronics is also recycled, Wolf said.
"We are assured it is recycled correctly," she said.
The tribe pays another recycler to remove hazardous materials like fluorescent light bulbs, batteries and some parts of televisions and computer components.
"We will do whatever it takes to do cradle to grave recycling," Wolf said, adding the tribe follows EPA guidelines.
When you add up the labor to break up the electronics and other costs the tribe is losing money but more importantly its are gaining a clean community, she aid.
"We are not making a profit off of it but it is the right thing to do," Wolf said.
About 180 Menominee Tribal School students will clean litter and recyclables from around the campus and other downtown areas of Neopit, one of four communities on the reservation.
"The students will be picking up litter and recyclables and anything that's on the roads or sidewalks or the yards," Wolf said, adding the students will be planting 50 saplings.
The tribal school cleanup project will be followed by a picnic that includes native foods, Wolf said.
"We are inviting the parents to bring a potluck and there will likely be wild rice and other Native American dishes," Wolf said.
The lunch will include a drama performance and the "high school drum" consisting of students who are learning the music of the Menominee tribe's history.
"Our school is very much a cultural-motivated school," said Wolf, adding respect for nature is an important part of the tribe's heritage. "The school teaches about the Menominee culture and language."
The students learn about our Menominee history and our language," Wolf said. "My children speak fluent Menominee."
The MITW has nearly 10,000 members including an enrolled population of 8,471 most of whom still live on the reservation.
"We believe it's important for our tribal members to recycle, reduce waste and energy consumption, and reuse items," said Wolf, adding her office does everything possible to educate youngsters about protecting the environment.
Wolf said every year co-workers have to clean up illegal dumping sites in the tribe's 234,000 acres of forest. The tribe's solid waste facility has annually collected up to five tons of computers and other electronics over the past decade.
Students at the College of Menominee Nation are accepting e-waste and unwanted medicines on April 22 in the commons building. The college's Implementing Sustainable Development class is hosting the collection with help from the tribe's solid waste coordinator.
