Blue Star Recyclers gets expansion grant
A $50,000 grant from Mitsubishi Electric American Foundation will help nonprofit Blue Star Recyclers, which employs disabled adults to recycle electronics that would otherwise end up in landfills, expand nationwide.
Colorado Springs-based Blue Star, which also has locations in Boulder and Denver, hopes to start with two new cities next year, pondering locations in Austin, Texas; Richmond, Va.; Salt Lake City; and Lincoln and Omaha, Neb. Mitsubishi also wants Blue Star to consider 10 other cities where the Japanese giant operates manufacturing plants.
Blue Star will select the first two new cities based on volume of electronic waste generated in the cities and whether it receives financial support from the cities, co-founder and CEO Bill Morris said. The grant money will be used to research locations, build relationships in selected cities and eventually build facilities.
“The simplicity of this company is electronic waste; every city has it — cities need an ethical solution,” Morris said. “The other element is having people with disabilities who want to work; less than 20 percent of people with disabilities are employed. Also, less than 20 percent of electronic waste is recycled — we are trying to address both things.”
Morris said the company typically creates eight to 12 jobs for every 1 million pounds of waste a city generates per year. “In a new city, our job is to get the community involved (and reach) that level of volume.”
Blue Star was started in Colorado Springs in 2009, expanding to Denver in 2014 and Boulder last year. The company also is contemplating locations in Aspen, Fort Collins and elsewhere on the Front Range.
In Colorado, about 15 percent of electronic waste is recycled, compared with 12.5 percent nationwide, Morris said.