AT&T teams up with Arbor Day Foundation to heal Calif. wildfire scars

That old cell phone you have lying around may be worth some green, but it's not the green you think

AT&T and Assurance Protection Company are teaming up to support the Arbor Day Foundation's

reforestation efforts in California. Every phone, tablet, or device traded in to AT&T

online or in-store during April will support the planting of a tree at the Placerville Nursery

for California Wildfire Reforestation. This is the state's only forest service nursery and one

of six nationwide. The campaign aims to plant 75,000 new trees at the nursery. Those trees

will later be transplanted into forests and communities affected by the recent Los Angeles

wildfires. Roman Smith, the Director of Global Environmental Sustainability at AT&T, spoke to

Straight Arrow News Monday about the effort. All these electronics that were out there

they're doing great things for our life, but they are also, there's millions of devices that are

just simply just being discarded. And it is the largest, it is a problem because it's the largest

now solid waste stream that we have as far as waste is concerned. AT&T says the program is part

of a broader disaster response strategy. During the height of the disaster, AT&T offered free

Wi-Fi, charging stations, and mobile connectivity during wildfire evacuations, as well as $2 million

in relief donations. The Los Angeles and San Diego regions saw multiple deadly wildfires

throughout the month of January. At least 30 people died in the fires. More than 18,000 homes

and structures were destroyed The fires burned over 57 acres of land Last week AT kicked off their Earth Month commitment by offering trees for old tech in downtown Dallas More than 250 trees were

distributed. Each day, an estimated 400,000 cell phones are thrown away in the United States

That's more than 150 million a year. 55 million devices have been recycled back to AT&T since 2009

But it's not just about refurbishing newer devices. A lot of folks have heard the term, especially lately in the news and so forth, about rare earth minerals, right

And when you think about these types of devices and all electronic devices, there are a lot of rare earth minerals in there

According to the EPA, for every million cell phones we recycle, 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered

So how does planting trees help play a role in offsetting e-waste? What we found is trees connect with people. Trees connect with our consumers

When you think about the environmental discussion and trying to get them to take action, they respond to trees

Last year, the same initiative led to the planting of over 50,000 trees across Oregon and Florida

AT&T and the Arbor Day Foundation have teamed up for the past 20 years, planting over 1.2 million trees

The Tree for a Trading campaign goes throughout the month of April at all AT&T stores

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Jack Elmer