Help Gorillas on World Gorilla Day with E-Recycling

Recycling your old electronics with MCPc at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on September 24 can help protect gorillas in the wild.

One of the few places on earth where a metallic ore called coltan is found is in the forest of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is also the only home of the critically endangered Grauer’s gorilla. Smartphones, computers and other small electronics rely on metals like coltan to keep them powered up and working.

The metals inside your electronic devices are mined from the earth in places all over the world, places like the forests of Africa where gorillas make their home. The mining of some of these minerals can contribute to gorilla habitat destruction and military and economic conflict.

Fortunately, we can recycle our old electronics and reuse these minerals again in new devices. Recycling our electronics keeps them out of landfills and allows companies to reclaim the minerals inside.

Mountain gorillas can be found in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, at the borders of Uganda, Congo and Rwanda.

What can I do to help?

Bring your old electronics to the Zoo for recycling on Friday, September 24 and help us raise money to support gorilla conservation!

The Cleveland Zoological Society and MCPc, a data protection company, are hosting an electronics recycling event on World Gorilla Day, September 24. Guests are encouraged to bring their old electronics to the Zoo’s parking lot where MCPc will have a secure truck that will take the electronics back to their facility for recycling.

World Gorilla Day's E-Recycling Event
Friday, September 24
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Zoo's parking lot (at the far back of the Tiger Lot)
Event is rain or shine

What items can I bring to be recycled?

MCPc will be accepting quite a number of items on World Gorilla Day from cell phones to computer keyboards and nearly everything in between. Click here for a full list of items that will be accepted on September 24.

Clean out the clutter in your house AND support gorilla conservation at the same time!

How will recycling my items on World Gorilla Day help gorillas?

Reclaimed electronic materials can be sold to manufacturers to make new devices. Some companies, like Cleveland’s own MCPc, use money earned through these sales to support gorilla conservation. Money raised from your recycled electronics will be used to support gorilla conservation.

What happens to my electronic device when MCPc recycles it?

Recycling unused electronic devices enables us to recover valuable metals and materials including copper, aluminum, titanium, gold, and silver, which can be reclaimed and reused in new electronic devices. E-recycling saves natural resources, reduces pollution, conserves landfill space, and creates jobs, including right here in Cleveland!

E-recycling is largely a process of separating plastics from metals and internal circuitry. First, your electronics will be dismantled, and components separated by type: power cords, plastic and metal housings, circuit boards and chips, LCDs, etc. Then, these components will be processed by our secure, specialized recycling partners so they can be used to manufacture new electronics.

If you recycle a device that holds data (such as a desktop or laptop computer, smartphone, or tablet), we will erase it with software that uses a standard 3-pass data overwrite, or secure SSD erasure process. This permanently destroys your data in compliance with standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Drives and storage devices that fail erasure are shredded at the MCPc Secure Technology Asset Disposition Center in Old Brooklyn.

The Zoo Society partnered with MCPc in 2020 with a fully interactive and ADA-accessible exhibit highlighting the relationship between protection of gorillas and electronics recycling.