MAGAZINES 
Help the planet, help yourself: recycle old cell phones
Has your junk drawer turned into a cellphone graveyard? With cellphone life span now averaging 20 months, more than 100 million outdated models get tossed aside each year. But if you’re like most people, you may not be sure what to do with your old phones.
What you don’t want to do is toss them into the garbage. Small as they are, cell phones contain toxic chemicals such as lead, arsenic, copper and beryllium. “Cell phones decay really rapidly because of how small they are,” says Jason Gelfand, director of operations at Boulder-based Cellular Recycling. “These toxic metals can potentially leach into water tables and the larger environment. One phone can pollute something like 40,000 gallons of ground water.” Exposure is related to serious problems, from rashes, breathing difficulties and developmental abnormalities to damaged nervous systems and vital organs.
What you want to do is recycle your outdated phones, and you have a couple of options. Best-case scenario: Sell them to an outfit like Cellular Recycling. “We pay between 25 cents and $300 per phone,” Gelfand says. “If you throw away your old phones, you’re throwing away money.” Cellular Recycling refurbishes old phones for resale; those that can’t be refurbished are scraped for their precious metals and properly smelted. Refurbishers often team up with charities and other nonprofits to encourage turning old phones in.
If you want the easiest recycling option, simply drop off oldies at cellphone retailers, Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder CHaRM (Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials), or the CU campus. Many of their recycling bins are provided by The Wireless Alliance, a Boulder-based organization that recycles about 80,000 phones a month at 17,000 national dropoff sites.
Recycling tip: Erase your personal data. “There is a lot of information on people’s phones, and we are very careful to remove it,” says Andrew Bates, director of business development at The Wireless Alliance. “But I still advise people to remove their information before recycling. It’s very easy. You can visit our website or many others to learn how to do this.”
So reach into your junk drawer and dig out those old clunkers.
—Mary Lynn Bruny
Tool School
In 1976, Boulder’s Center for ReSource Conservation was born. In 1996, this nonprofit begat the ReSource Yard, sort of a secondhand Home Depot in that it sells used building materials. In 2010, ReSource begat the Tool Library, a program that accepts donated tools and loans them out to do-it-yourselfers. Finally, in 2011, the Tool Library begat the Tool School. Just as a traditional library might offer literacy classes, the Tool Library offers competency classes for people who want to build and make things. Jeff Larson, program coordinator for the Tool Library, explains the mission: “Most schools have shut down shop classes, and if you’re not learning from Mom and Dad, there aren’t a lot of options.” At Tool School, children, teens, women and men learn how to handle hand and power tools safely and skillfully. Some of it is just plain fun—upcycled robots, anyone?—and some of it is super-practical (energy efficiency, wood joinery, drip irrigation). The Tool School is retooling for winter classes, so visit www.resourceyard.org/toolschool for class details. Or, if you’ve got a project you’d like to do but don’t know how, call Larson and offer a class suggestion: 303-419-8534. —Wendy Underhill
What to do in Gold Hill
The past year has been a sad one for business in Gold Hill. Although the Fourmile Fire spared the village, people who don’t live nearby have assumed that it burned down. Come back and see for yourself that this “jewel of Boulder County” is alive and well.
1. Have a cold drink and green-chili burrito at the Gold Hill Store. topped off with an espresso and homemade rhubarb pie.
2. Visit the Gold Hill Museum. Find out that Boulder was the supply town to Gold Hill for its mining needs, and that many Boulder streets are named after the “fathers” of Gold Hill.
3. Take a walk up Main Street. See the Gold Hill School—the oldest continuously running elementary and one-room schoolhouse in Colorado. Stop by the Red Store (once Doc Vaughn’s Saloon) to check out stained glass and pottery produced in Gold Hill.
4. Drive just west of Gold Hill to see the post-fire rebuilding of one of the premier children’s camps in the state, the Colorado Mountain Ranch.
5. Come back into town and have a six-course meal at the award-winning Gold Hill Inn, where neighbors often meet up at the bar. Engage in a Colorado history-based murder mystery performed in full costume. Spend the night at the historic Bluebird Lodge.
Gold Hill is currently the social hub for many people who lost their homes in the Fourmile Fire. Support them and the community by coming to the Gold Hill Town Fundraiser on Sept. 18 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Proceeds from the silent auction, bake sale, craft fair and homemade ice cream stand will replenish badly needed funds for the fire department, historic preservation and fire mitigation, and many other town-related expenses. goldhilltown.com.
—Mary Jarrett
Bicycles for Humanity
In a part of the world where HIV/AIDS, malaria and dehydration claim thousands of lives a day, bicycle transportation goes beyond fitness and eco-activism. Instead, it becomes a critical, life-saving option for healthcare workers trying to reach rural people in need.
This is where Bicycles for Humanity Colorado comes in. B4H Colorado is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides discarded bicycles to healthcare workers in Namibia—more than 2,000 bikes so far. “Sustainable mobile healthcare” is critical for those who are beyond the reach of infrastructures like roads, buses and trains. On bicycle transport, healthcare workers can make four times the number of visits to the sick in a day.
Not only will B4H Colorado fix up used bikes and ship them to Africa; the shipping container itself, once it arrives, is used as a makeshift community bicycle shop! In Boulder, bikes can be dropped off at Full Cycle, University Bicycles or the Sports Garage. Visit b4hcolorado.org to learn more or to make financial contributions online.
—Carolyn Oakley
Sharing our not-so-distant past
One Book programs are all about shared experiences that can happen when everyone in a community reads the same book at the same time. This fall, Louisville, Lafayette and Superior residents are not only sharing the same book, they’re sharing a slew of events based on that book in a combined On The Same Page program.
This year’s book—The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, a National Book Award winner—profiles families that survived the Dust Bowl. The decade of the Dust Bowl, the worst natural disaster in American history until Hurricane Katrina, struck the southwestern U.S. during the Great Depression.
“A lot of people have heard the terms Dust Bowl and Great Depression without understanding the great magnitude of those events,” says Ron Buffo, a former history teacher who will be moderating two of the three book discussions. “The stories in Egan’s book are so poignant—what was so important to those people who refused to leave during this disaster?” Buffo says he and co-moderator and history teacher David Farrell want to lead a roundtable discussion that looks at that issue and the historic, scientific, and human-made reasons behind the stories of hardship and perseverance.
Storytellers, game day for families, a film festival, poetry readings, children’s programs, a quilt exhibition, live music, and book discussions are just some of the offerings. Stephen Jones, naturalist and author of The Last Prairie, Boulder County Nature Almanac and Wild Boulder County, will speak on Oct. 20 at Monarch High School about how agricultural and land use practices were changed after the Dust Bowl to help the soil return to health.
For his book, Dust Bowl Descent, Bill Ganzel interviewed survivors of the Great Depression whose photographs were taken in the 1930s by the Farm Security Administration. An exhibit based on his book shows “then-and-now” photos combined with oral history excerpts of the people in the photos from September through Oct. 28 in the Lafayette Public Library lobby. To see more Farm Security Administration photos, visit the Louisville Public Library.
Buffo and Farrell moderate book discussions on Oct. 5 at Louisville Public Library and Oct. 17 at Lafayette Public Library. On Sept. 22 at Superior Town Hall, Monarch High School librarian Beatrice Gerrish leads another discussion group.
For more information and a schedule, visit the Lafayette or Louisville library.
—Kay Turnbaugh
Ten Years Later: the 9/11 Anniversary
Several Boulder County arts events commemorate the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Arts for the Soul and First United Methodist Church of Boulder sponsor a “Weekend of Remembrance, Healing and Wholeness” Sept. 9-11. Events range from live music to a bazaar specializing in Fair Trade and “socially responsible” goods. They culminate Sunday at 2 p.m. with a choral and orchestral performance of Maurice Duruflé’s emotional Requiem, followed by a talk by Matthew Fox on “Lessons Learned from 9/11.” All events are at First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder; most are free. A schedule and more information are on the church website, www.mychurchevents.com, or call 303-442-3770. More information is available at www.boulderdowntown.com/events.
The College of Music at CU-Boulder offers a variety of musical performances by faculty members and a surprise guest in a tribute recital on Sunday, Sept. 11, at 2 p.m. at Grusin Auditorium, 18th Street and Euclid Avenue. Admission is free. Visit music.colorado.edu/events.
The Boulder Public Library, 1001 Arapahoe Ave., features storytelling and live music beginning at 3 p.m. in the Canyon Theater on Sunday, Sept. 11. The program is centered around themes of peace and compassion. Outside, from 1-5 p.m., artists from the nonprofit group Chalk4Peace lead in the creation of all-ages chalk art on the cement plazas in front of the main entrance on Arapahoe Avenue and the north entrance at Canyon Boulevard. Colored chalk and pastels are provided. Both events are free. For information: events.boulderlibrary.org/eventcalendar.asp.
—Charmaine Ortega Getz
To Your Health & Long Life
Mark Saunders survived prostate cancer at age 46, having embraced every treatment and lifestyle change that felt right to him. The Front Range Community College journalism and creative-writing professor has expressed his gratitude by publishing an online journal to support other people in “health, healing, and living a balanced life.” Bartlett’s Integrated Health Journal (bartlettshealth.com), named for his physician father and launched in July, is packed with the kinds of information that lifted Saunders up, gave him ideas and pulled him through his own illness.
“Lots of local people are reading it,” Saunders says. “The most popular thing we’ve run on the site is the organic-grocery survey”—a table comparing prices and availability of organic items at several Boulder stores—“and we’re going to keep doing it.” Bartlett’s also offers interviews, “provocative” news items like “Mediterraneans Abandon Their Famous Diet,” and essays like “Between Brat and Perfect,” featuring a 3-year-old who may need an exorcist and her goldfish, Stinky Socks. All in all, the blog aims to lead readers “to healthier choices that feel good, taste good, and add more pleasure to life.”
—Mary Jarrett
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