Swimming _ and e-cycling _ for the oceans

Here's some news from the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership:

Next spring, an otherwise rational Massachusetts resident, Christopher Swain, will embark on a 900-mile swim from Gloucester, Mass., to Washington, D.C. (He will not, presumably, be swimming nonstop. And hopefully, the water in the Atlantic, the Chesapeake and the Potomac will be cleaner than in earlier efforts, when he swam the entire lengths of the Columbia River, the Charles River, the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.)

It's all to draw attention to the plight of the world's oceans.

The ocean swim is part of Christopher Swain's "TOXTOUR" project, an ongoing campaign to collect and recycle, ethically, one billion pounds of used electronics. Discarded computers, TVs, telephones, etc., commonly known as "e-waste," are full of toxic chemicals and heavy metals that Swain says are fouling the world's waterways and ecosystems.

This Friday, he'll be in the region, visiting several schools, including Arcadia University, Cedarbrook Middle School, Glenside Elementary School, Cheltenham High School and School of the Future in Philadelphia. In conjunction with his visit, on Saturday, Dec. 6, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the watershed partnership will host a recycling event at Cedarbrook Middle School at 300 Longfellow Road in Wyncote. People can recycle their used electronics for a fee of $1 per pound.

The partnership asserts that nothing collected at the event will be tipped into landfills, incinerated as solid waste, or dumped in developing countries. Proceeds will benefit the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership's environmental programs in Cheltenham Schools.

For more information about Swain: www.toxtour.org

For more information on the watershed group: www.ttfwatershed.org