EVERETT — Fifth-graders from Fairmount Elementary School know something about recycling old refrigerators.
Nearly 100 students from the school in the Mukilteo School District got a tour Thursday at JACO Environmental, an appliance recycling facility on Casino Road. Their old school refrigerator is the 40,000th unit recycled since 2004 by three utility companies including Snohomish Public Utility District, Seattle City Light and Tacoma Power.
The students put on safety glasses and started their tour by looking at containers of recyclable refrigerator parts such as oil, coils and tubing, glass, foam, plastic casing and metal. These recycled parts become new products to make soda cans, mobile phones, computers, nails, rebar and more, said Robert Nicholas, director of business development for JACO Environmental.
Nicholas showed students where refrigerators are brought into the facility and where plastic trays and bins are removed from the units. Students watched as a machine grabbed their school’s fridge and lifted it up. The machine removes oil and refrigerant chemicals from about 100 refrigerators that are processed every day, facility manager Chuck Newcomb said.
Old refrigerators are “energy hogs,” he told one group of students.
“A lot of us have that second refrigerator, and those refrigerators are three to four times more energy inefficient than the newer ones out today,” Newcomb said.
Groups learned that about 95 percent of refrigerators can be recycled. They were told the three utility companies give customers $30 to give up their energy-wasting refrigerators and freezers so they can be recycled safely without releasing harmful chemicals into the atmosphere.
Students watched as insulation foam was ripped off one refrigerator and put in bags to recycled at another facility.
Newcomb asked students if he could keep the school’s refrigerator with their names written all over the exterior. They agreed.
“I’m so proud of this,” Newcomb said. “I want to keep it and use it to tell everyone that Fairmount (students) came through and had a tour.”
The tour was informative and fun, fifth-grader Romey Rohde said.
“What was probably the most fun was watching them tear apart the insulation foam but it was cool to see what is recycled and what isn’t,” said Romey 11. “I always thought that on a fridge everything was thrown away.”
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.
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