A local electronics recycler will soon have some of the equipment it recycles become part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian.
The company is Brockport-based Sunnking, and they will be supplying hundreds of cellphones to be part of an exhibit at Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Josh Bell is the curator of this exhibit, which will not only look at the global impact cellphones have had over the years, but also the importance of recycling.
“Recycling creates this opportunity of re-harvesting these materials for a second life, and so we want it to kind of empower people to know and to be able to make more informed decisions about what they do at the end of life of their device,” said Bell.
Bell added that this upcoming exhibit tries to portray the way the cellphone connects us.
“The kind of various ways that humans around the planet use it,” said Bell. “And then, what happens when you’re done with your cellphone. And so the show is an attempt to kind of unpack what it means to be human in the 21st century, think through issues of globalization through the device that everyone loves to hate and hates to love.”
Robert Burns is Director of Marketing for Sunnking, and he said this is a great opportunity for his company.
“That’s huge for us, and obviously, the Smithsonian. They get dinosaurs, they get mummies, they get all this cool stuff, and here’s our cell phones from Rochester, New York,” said Burns, “and I think it’s going to be really cool to go in there and see it and see some local representation as well.”
Burns said that Sunnking is getting some smartphones sent in for recycling, but they are still getting a lot of those older phones you may or may not remember.
“We still get Blackberries, we still get flip phones, we still get Nokia phones, the Zack Morris 90s phones…and people are finding them in their drawers, in their basements, (from) older relatives, or whatever the reason may be.”
Tammy Maxon is a floor supervisor at Sunnking who oversees the recycling process and she likes the fact the company can help take some of the older phones and other materials out of the waste stream.
“You don’t want to throw things away, you want to make sure it’s properly recycled,” said Maxon. “It’s saving it for our kids, our kids’ kids, from the landfill. It’s just bettering our community and our world.”
Maxon and Burns are among a small group of Sunnking employees who will be headed down to Washington, D.C. later this month for the opening of the exhibit at the Smithsonian.
The cell phone exhibit is expected to be in place at the museum for at least three years.
