12th annual Earth Day Electronics and Appliances Recycling Drive

The Stockton United Methodist Church Go Green Team held its 12th annual Earth Day Electronics and Appliances Recycling Drive on Saturday, April 19, 2025.

Each year around Earth Day, the church offers community members a place to bring all types of dead, worn out, or otherwise unwanted electronics to be recycled through a partnership with Meredith Recycling.

Despite a rainy, cold day for this year's drive, 128 households participated, up from 108 households in 2024. Many individuals brought their own items that morning, and church members collected items around the community the day prior.

Dozens of volunteers on Saturday directed drivers to circle the church parking lot and drop off their electronic items that have outlived their usefulness. The church offers many items to be recycled for free, such as old computer towers, printers, and appliances big and small. The church also welcomes batteries for a donation, and TVs and monitors for a fee.

Creation Care Ministry leader Cheryl Marcum reported that, in addition to nearly filling Meredith Recycling's roll-off dumpster with large appliances and stacking hundreds of small appliances in its tractor-trailer, the drive also collected three full five-gallon buckets of small batteries and nearly one full bucket of larger batteries to be delivered by church member Mike Dunne to a recycling center in Springfield.

"I think the overall volume was down for the number served," Marcum said, but added that "electronics are getting smaller and the people who come seem to bring the past year’s dead items, with few bringing loads of old stuff pulled out of barns and outbuildings like in the early years."

The Go Green Team promotes sustainability practices within the church and in the community year-round. The organization participates in the Stockton Area Ministerial Alliance's Back to School Fair to collect recyclable waste generated from distributing school supplies. The group puts out recycling receptacles during the annual Black Walnut Festival to collect plastic and aluminum beverage bottles. In addition to the church's internal low-waste practices, such as eliminating styrofoam container use and recycling all paper, it is a collection point for used crayons, markers, pencils, pens, and highlighters; printer ink and toner cartridges; pill bottles; and single-use plastic bags.

The Go Green Team also holds a drive for lightbulbs each year, and the church's United Women in Faith has put on a rummage sale every fall and spring for decades with community donations.