Posts Tagged ‘Coltan’

Mar
21

Houston Aeros Cell Phone Drive

Posted by in Animal Origins & Fun Facts,Central America,Chimpanzee,community-based conservation,Conservation,Endangered Species,Gorilla,What You Can Do

Spring Break is probably the busiest week of the year for many of us. The zoo is full of visiting guests, families are traveling and the Houston Aeros Hockey Team played 6 home games in 8 nights.

Not only did the Houston Aeros win 5 of those 6 home games, they also assisted the Houston Zoo in our most successful recycled cell phone collection drive ever! Just for general reference, the zoo collected nearly 1,200 phones in 2011. During the week of March 10-18 of this year – the Houston Aeros collected 758 phones before their games at the Toyota Center!

Looks like someone just recycled Edward from Twilight. Score one for Team Jacob

Help Wildlife in the Congo:

Why recycle your cell phone? First, it can help the environment by recycling hazardous waste but it also may help animals in the wild. Columbite-tantalite, or Coltan for short, is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the eastern areas of the African Congo. It is used in cell phones, laptops, pagers and other electronic devices. When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge.  Some types of Coltan mining may occur illegally in protected lands all across the Congo which in turn put wildlife such as Elephants and Gorillas of the Congo region at risk. Eighty percent of the world’s known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, it is mined by hand by groups of men digging basins in streams, scraping away dirt to get to the muddy coltan underneath. Recycling unused cell phones can help protect the wildlife, since reuse of the phones results in the need for fewer new ones, which reduces the need for coltan mining.
 
Donate your cell phone to the Houston Zoo and the Zoo will have it recycled ensuring that most of these cell phones and their accessories will be reused or properly disposed of.
 
A big thank you to the Houston Aeros and Aeros staff for all their help and support for the Houston Zoo. There are 7 more home games before the season ends on April 15th and the Houston Aeros start their playoff run to the Calder Cup Trophy. Check out their schedule and support Aeros hockey.

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Nov
18

Procrasti-Nation and Cell Phone Recycling

Posted by in Africa,Chimpanzee,community-based conservation,Conservation,Endangered Species,Featured,Going Green,Gorilla,What You Can Do

Have you ever asked yourself: What are all these broken cell phones doing in the  drawer?  And then your “other” voice says:  They are not really in the way, I’ll throw them out later.

I had a friend bring me a bag of 6 phones and chargers last week. They were in a box in his garage for 2 years. 6 phones? There are 2 people in his family! We cannot keep up with the cell phone revolution and our landfills should not have to either. To make matters worse, every phone not recovered and recycled is equal to minerals and resources coming directly out of the African Congo. Everyone says – “What can we do?”. Here is what you can do and it really makes a difference.

Bring your cell phone to the zoo for recycling and help save wildlfe, and people, in Africa. Civil wars and rebel groups thrive on the illegal trade in the resources which make our phones,  laptops, digital cameras, and video games run. There is a mineral in our phones called coltan and it acts as a capacitor in your phone. Armed groups in eastern Congo that control minerals, mines and trading routes generate an estimated $180 million each year by trading four main minerals: tin, tantalum (colton), tungsten, and gold.

And with these groups comes habitat destruction, illegal poaching and bushmeat, as well as the loss of human life due to the civil unrest. Something as simple as a cell phone has created a power struggle over resources. By recycling that resource so that it can be refurbished and re-used, we cut down on the amount of product imported, and hopefully slow down the trade.

Want to start a company wide collection program? Schools, Scout troops? Wildlife can use everyone’s help. Contact conservation@houstonzoo.org for more information.

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Jun
29

I am very dissapointed with you

Posted by in Africa,Chimpanzee,Conservation,Elephant,Endangered Species,What You Can Do

How is that Houston is not on the list of the top ten places for recycling cell phones in 2010? Have you not been listening to us? Have you not visited Willie the Chimpanzee in African Forest and said to yourself “what can I do to help wildlife”? Recycling cell phones help keep wildlife in Africa safe(r). Seems bizarre, but it’s true.

Here are a list of the cities and institutions who have cast shame upon you and will probably do so again in 2011 if you do not go home and empty your drawers of all unneeded cell phones immediately. Numbers to the right are how many they collected for recycling.

  1. Cincinnati Zoo, 10365
  2. Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, 5061
  3. San Diego Zoo, 2611
  4. Calgary Zoo, 2510
  5. Louisville Zoo, 2484
  6. Philadelphia Zoo, 1904
  7. Lion Country Safari, 1626
  8. Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico, 1626
  9. Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (Zoo Atlanta), 1535
  10. Bluegrass PRIDE, 1482

 

How is it that a canadian city, someone who has pride in Bluegrass and a handful of zoos in cities smaller than ours managed to collect more cell phones than Houston – we were around #15 at 1,150 phones recycled in 2010 by the way. There are 2 million of you living outside our doors, and everyone of you has a phone!

Well, Houston can do better and our zoo has a special drop box at the front gate for your unwanted cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, laptops, MP3′s, portable hard drives and handheld game systems or you can simply mail them to the Houston Zoo. How about running a company cell phone drive? Boy Scouts? Summer Camp Program? Come on, I know these broken electornics are just lying around in your house reminding you about that bad purchase or how you dropped your phone in a bowl of tomato soup!

I will say this one time and one time only Houstonians:

Why recycle your cell phone? First, it can help the environment by recycling hazardous waste but it also may help animals in the wild. Columbite-tantalite, or Coltan for short, is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the eastern areas of the African Congo. It is used in cell phones, laptops, pagers and other electronic devices. When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge. 
Some types of Coltan mining may occur illegally in protected lands all across the Congo which in turn put wildlife such as Elephants and Gorillas of the Congo region at risk. Eighty percent of the world’s known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, it is mined by hand by groups of men digging basins in streams, scraping away dirt to get to the muddy coltan underneath. Recycling unused cell phones can help protect the wildlife, since reuse of the phones results in the need for fewer new ones, which reduces the need for coltan mining.

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