Searching for an eco-friendly approach to finance your studies — an approach that’s a bit unconventional? The Electronics Recycling Association (ERA) offers a grant competition for students! All you have to do is collect electronic waste in your region. Here are the details:
Who is eligible to participate?
This competition is accessible to any full- or part-time student in Canada — international students included! If you are participating outside of ERA’s primary regions of operation, listed below, there will be some modified requirements, but the basic concepts remain the same.
ERA’s primary regions of operation:
- Vancouver
- Calgary
- Edmonton
- Saskatoon
- Winnipeg
- Toronto
- Montréal
Electronic waste collection
Create a promotional plan and commence collecting electronic waste in your region. You will be accountable for every aspect, from planning to implementation! ERA is interested in innovative strategies to engage with local businesses and community members.
Once you have collected all the electronic waste, the ERA team will evaluate the performance of each student and select a grant recipient!
Collecting items
Curious about how you will gather items from your community? It’s simple!
- Utilize the ERA app or a paper form and create a shipping label with your unique ID attached
- ERA will collect approved items at no cost! (There is a fee for non-approved items, but they will still contribute towards your total collected items.)
- Organize corporate pickups: ERA will collect 10 or more computers from any company in Canada, and ensure the hard drives are securely wiped before donating the devices to one of 500+ charities
- Arrangement a community collection event and encourage your neighbors to bring their unwanted computers and electronic devices
Remember, the more devices you collect, the greater your chances of being chosen as the grand prize winner! Be innovative in order to gather as many devices as possible. You will benefit your neighbors, the environment, and yourself!
What items are acceptable?
You can consult the complete list of acceptable items here, but the fundamentals are straightforward. We are interested in items such as:
- cell phones
- servers
- laptops
- networking equipment
- video game consoles
- and so on..
Regrettably, household and personal electronics, including televisions, are not accepted! You can seek guidance at any time if you are uncertain about what is acceptable.
How is the winner determined?
The ERA team will assess each participant in several related areas:
- Quantity of collected equipment
- Quality of collected equipment
- Exposure received by your collection event, both online and offline
You can mention ERA on social media using #ERAScholarship so we can check out your progress! Make sure to keep track of your promotional efforts so that you can include the details in a post-collection report.
Please note that if you participate, ERA will possess the rights to all submitted promotional material and can utilize these materials as they see fit. This includes any social media accounts you create for the 2023 ERA grant competition! You will be required to give up the passwords at the end if you have created new accounts specifically for this competition.
How can I claim the $1,000,000 prize?
The grand prize is $1,000,000, which will be awarded to a student who collects one million laptops and smartphones suitable for donation! This is quite challenging, but if you are resourceful and determined, perhaps you can find a way!
Remember, there is also a $100,000 prize for a student who collects 100,000 devices! So persevere until the deadline!
Even if nobody reaches the $1,000,000 or $100,000 thresholds this year, there is still a $10,000 prize, along with a MacBook Pro, for the top student, as well as various other cash and laptop prizes for other participants.
When is the deadline to collect items?
You have until September 1, 2023 to collect devices for ERA! The winners will be announced on ERA social media around October.
You can find further information on the ERA FAQ page, so if you have any questions, start there. We are excited to see the innovative and creative methods you come up with to collect electronic waste from your region! Best of luck!
