October, 2023: A Dual Celebration
TRC celebrates our Annual Recycle Your Mercury Thermostat Day on Oct. 24. We created this celebratory day as an outreach to consumers and HVAC contractors as a reminder of our mission: We intend to recycle and safely dispose of every unit no matter where they are.
We use this day, which we “founded” in 2018, as a marketing and public relations effort to broaden the message and to give it some emphasis or “pop” via media outlets, especially those in the HVAC industry.
October is also the closing period of our Banish Mercury Off the Planet contest, which ends Oct. 31. The contest is our annual campaign to motivate wholesalers who collect these units in the green bins we send them. When we receive the contents of these bins, we keep a tally. We announce the top three winners of this collection process at HARDI’s annual conference in Phoenix this year, Dec. 2 to 5.
Last but certainly not least, this year marks the 25th anniversary of TRC’s founding. When manufacturers stopped using mercury in thermostats, they agreed to invest their resources into removing those units from homes and businesses. TRC became the organization that emerged in this effort and has led the charge, becoming, in the process, the leading entity for collecting and recycling these units in the 48 contiguous states.
When you look back and think of 25 years as a quarter of a century, the time devoted to this effort has a rather imposing ring to it. And it should because I have used the word relentless (as have my predecessors) to describe our efforts, which remain ongoing. During this period, we have collected and recycled more than 13 tons of mercury from more than 2.9 million thermostats. It’s a reflection of TRC and its leadership, who never lost sight of the big picture.
I’ve described in a previous blog that our work is not glamorous, which remains valid. However, I like to think of it as everyone in our industry making their own contribution for the greater good, no matter how small.
This is an appropriate time to thank our partners who fund us and the thousands of wholesalers, contractors and waste collection sites that have participated in this effort to remove mercury-containing thermostats from the environment. It’s a job well done and a job that continues. I thank all of you.