New Richmond students collect phones for gorillas

New Richmond’s Monroe Elementary School collected 228 old cell phones for the Cincinnati Zoo’s Go Bananas Challenge.

“This initiative is a project to save the gorillas,” noted Monroe visual art teacher Adrian Hawk who organized the effort through the school’s Monroe’s Art & Earth Club. “The materials and metals that are used to make cell phones are mined in prime gorilla habitats and by recycling old cell phones instead of throwing them away, gorillas and their habitats are being preserved!”

Cell phones contain an ore called coltan, which is mined in endangered gorilla habitat in Africa.