by Kate Martin
Avery Postera, 11, a fifth-grader at Fidalgo Elementary, collected 113 phone books for a contest that many area elementary schools participated in. The phone books will be recycled into insulation for Habitat for Humanity homes.
ANACORTES — Until Wednesday, Avery Postera wasn’t sure how many old phone books were sitting in her garage.
But as she and her mom carried box after box of them into Fidalgo Elementary School for a phone book recycling drive, she was shocked.
“I kind of thought there was a lot,” she said.
Avery, 11, had asked for phone books from friends, family and neighbors for the school’s phone book drive. In the end, she collected 113 directories from places all over northwest Washington.
Sixth-grade teacher Danica Kelly estimated that Avery’s 113 phone books weighed more than 225 pounds, nearly three times her 78-pound frame.
Fidalgo is one of about a dozen schools in Skagit and north Snohomish counties that are competing to bring in the most pounds of phone books for recycling. The directories are recycled into insulation for Habitat for Humanity homes.
On Friday afternoon, the day the contest ended, students at Fidalgo Elementary weighed in 950 pounds of books.
As a group, students across Skagit County were weighing in by the ton. (That’s 2,000 pounds per ton.)
The 575 students at Jefferson Elementary collected 5,024 pounds of phone books. Samish Elementary School collected 2,460 pounds, and Lyman Elementary’s 165 student participants collected nearly a ton with 2,078 pounds.
Conway School seemed to top the list with more than 4 tons of phone books. At 8,991 pounds in all among the 439 students, it added up to 20.5 pounds per child.
MacGregor Publishing Yellowbook has sponsored the “Return-to-Sender” contest since 1998. Bob Taylor, regional sales manager for the company, said the students’ dedication and enthusiasm translates into insulation for Habitat for Humanity.
“It’s a blow-in product,” Taylor said. “It’s been processed and treated to insulate the crawl spaces and attics in the rafters.”
Last year in Skagit and north Snohomish counties, students collected 64,000 pounds of phone books, enough to partially insulate 38 homes.
While nearly every house has at least one phone book, some students go the extra mile to collect more than others.
After all, a popcorn party is at stake.
Taylor Phillips, 11, said she collects books from her father’s workplace and around her neighborhood.
“It’s a big thing,” she said of the contest. “They save the old (phone books) for me.”
Students at Fidalgo Elementary’s K-Kids Club have organized their phone book drive for at least the past five years, Kelly said. Last month, the K-Kids watched a presentation about Habitat for Humanity by Tom Peebles, a former board of director member for the organization.
Though the students are too young to volunteer on a Habitat home build site, they can collect books.
Students collected the worn, heavy volumes, weighed them, and put them into a bin behind the school. From there, Peebles said, the books are taken to Skagit River Steel & Recycling in Sedro-Woolley, bound into tight bundles and shipped to Spokane, where the books will be processed into blown-in insulation by Thermo-Guard Insulation.
Terry Springfield, an inside salesperson at Thermo-Guard, said the company typically recycles a mix of newspaper, paperback books and phone books.
“The majority of it is newspapers,” Springfield said. “We put it in a machine that beats it down into small pieces.”
From there, the fluffy gray material is combined with fire retardant and ammonia to deter mice and other vermin, and is then packaged in 25-pound bags for distribution.
A 1,000-quare-foot home could take about 60 of the 25-pound bags, he said.
Totals collected this year from all participating schools weren’t available, but they include: Allen Creek, Clear Lake, Elger Bay, Jefferson, Mount Erie, Mount Vernon Christian and Twin City.
The contest winner could be announced this week.
• Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at .
