StRUT

Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT) is a not for profit organization that provides technology education, resources, and recycling to schools across Oregon.  StRUT’s backbone of operations is collecting used technology equipment to be redeployed for use in schools or responsibly recycled.

Used Technology

Working with companies such as Google, Intel, Symantec, and OHSU; StRUT coordinates the pick up or donation drop off of computers and peripherals which have seen their end of life come to pass for the companies which originally purchased them. Households, small businesses, and educational facilities themselves help round out our donation flow.Once the equipment reaches our secure facility in The Dalles, each piece is assessed for potential re-use. Old Computers, printers, monitors, keyboards and the like that don’t make the cut are set aside for recycling. Each piece of equipment that is designated for recycling is broken down into its component parts to be sold to recyclers. The money that StRUT receives for commodities like circuit boards and heat sinks provides the operating capital to keep our facility running.

Recycling

School groups join our staff to disassemble and sort components for sale as commodities to our local recycling partners. Our staff and student volunteers processed over 500,000 pounds of E-Waste in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Our receiving facility is set up to take donations of used computers one at a time, by the small truck load, or up to 10 pallets at a time in our delivery truck (or even more in yours!). Our warehouse is an elementary school gym converted to meet Oregon DEQ E-Cycle standards for workplace safety and technological commodity storage. We channel the recoverable technology parts to reputable recycling partners with R2, ISO 14001, and E-Steward credentials to ensure that your donations are handled responsibly by vendors with third party accredited auditing.

Our History

Present Day StRUT

In 2012, The Mid-Columbia Council of Governments (MCCOG) adopted StRUT. They clearly saw the importance of maintaining the StRUT program and the void it would leave in the community.Since moving the program to The Dalles, StRUT has distributed over 10,000 computers to Oregon schools, and has diverted over 900,000 TONS of E-Waste from entering Oregon landfills. StRUT maintains a close relationship with Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and has been the recipient of two of their capacity building grants.

Oregon StRUT: 2003 to 2012

The Columbia Gorge Education Service District, and their component school districts,partnering with Oregon Intel, gave this invaluable program a new life in The Dalles, Oregon after the Portland-based Oregon StRUT program suddenly closed its doors that year due to budgetary shortfalls. StRUT flourished under the ESD until 2012 when the ESD announced that recycling revenues were once again critically low for the self- sustaining program and suspended operations indefinitely. StRUT saved the program with a recycling drive that raised $28,000 in revenues and began to look for a long term solution.

Re-Using and Recycling Donations

When donations arrive at StRUT’s central headquarters in The Dalles, we weigh all material for our records and annual reporting to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Once we have recorded the donations weight, the material is reviewed to determine if it’s going to be redeployed to be used for its original intended purpose or to be recycled.Re-usable items are stripped of any external identifying labels and affixed with a StRUT Property Tag which will remain on the item until it has reached the end of it's useful life and is ready to enter the recycling flow. If there is a hard drive inside, it is removed and assessed individually for re-use. We take Data Protection and Data Destruction seriously and we're confident that every byte of user data that comes to StRUT is removed and destroyed. StRUT is able to reuse computers which meet Smarter Balanced and PARCC Guidelines and send them our to our member schools for use by students and faculty.

Computers and devices that are older and which will not be redeployed to our members are transferred to our recycling center where they are taken apart, parts are sorted, and the material is properly recycled. StRUT’s recycling companies pay us for the precious metals - Tin, gold, copper, aluminum, silver, and the revenue generated goes back into the StRUT program. Of course, we don't collect a barrel of tin or gold and transport it to our recycling partners. We perform the initial steps to take recyclable computers and start them on their way to being transformed into their base materials and ultimately transformed into new products.

Membership Enrollment

StRUT Member Schools save money on much needed equipment. Donations from corporations, individuals, and organizations that support StRUT provide quality computers and technology devices to member schools. StRUT computers can make up the bulk of the technology that a school has available for students and faculty or supplement the school's technology offering. StRUT students participate in becoming part of the solution to our growing e-waste problem while saving energy and resources. Every time a student cracks open a computer case to see what is happening inside the potential is there to expand their understanding of how technology is designed and engineered and grow their curiosity for how it works.StRUT members pay an annual membership fee ($500 or $750) based on their student population. They then receive an allocation of donated desktop computers, laptops, peripherals, books and additional equipment each year. When the StRUT devices reach the end of their useful life in the classroom they are returned to StRUT for responsible recycling.

StRUT offers technological staff development and support to educators and holds semi-annual conferences for additional collaboration opportunities.If your school or district would like to sign up for the 2014-2015 school year please click the link to our membership enrollment form below, to download. Complete the enrollment form and send a quality scan to info@strut.org. First time Membership if $500 for schools up to 500 students, and $750 for schools with more than 500 students.