Recycle My Battery

A non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of batteries by promoting and facilitating battery recycling globally, with a focus on mobilizing young people.

Around 15 billion batteries are thrown in the trash every year, with around three billion of these coming from the US alone. These batteries are all made from highly reactive, polluting, and scarce materials. Unfortunately, most of them end up in landfills, where they cause fires, pollute the soil and groundwater, emit greenhouse gasses, and cause serious environmental damage. In addition to this, battery production has a high carbon footprint and drives an increase in harmful, unsustainable mining practices.

Despite all of this, most people don’t know about the importance of proper battery disposal (only around 1% of people I surveyed) and many find it difficult to access recycling facilities, so the majority of batteries are simply thrown in the trash.

Another element of the problem is that the issue is getting considerably worse over time. The demand for batteries is rising globally all the time, with more consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and more being produced and used all the time.

The problem is going to continue to get worse if nothing is done to educate people and improve access to recycling facilities. If this is allowed to happen, there will inevitably be more fires, more pollution, and more greenhouse gas emissions, all of which will have a significant negative impact on the environment and could contribute to climate change.

To try to solve the problem, I started a non-profit organization called Recycle My Battery back in 2019. The organization is dedicated to promoting and facilitating battery recycling by running educational campaigns and installing free recycling bins in schools and other public places. It relies heavily on technology in the form of recycling technology and modern online media for promotional and educational purposes.

I started collecting batteries in person from my school and local community, but this quickly became unrealistic. To scale up, I approached Call2Recycle, one of the largest recycling organizations in North America, to ask for help. We agreed on a partnership to install free battery recycling bins in schools, libraries, office buildings, and other public places. This partnership provided the funding and infrastructure needed to reach as many people as possible.

At the same time, I also focussed on running a range of educational campaigns to teach people about battery recycling. I have mostly focussed on giving speeches, running training events, attending and contributing at conferences, issuing press releases, and making various media appearances such as a TED talk and going on television shows. Additionally, I have a website and use social media extensively to promote my messages.

Since 2019, we have managed to recycle more than 250,000 used batteries and reach an estimated 10 million people to teach them about the importance of battery recycling. We have also recruited over 300 volunteer school kids from around the world to help run Recycle My Battery. Around 10,000 other kids have committed to follow our messages and spread them to their families and friends, leading to an estimated one million more batteries being recycled.

Looking at the problem with a broad view, my solution is ultimately about protecting the environment and mitigating one of the contributors to climate change. Therefore, it will technically benefit everybody on the planet in some small way, and especially the people in the world most impacted by climate change, most of which are in the developing world.

However, on a shorter timescale, it will have the greatest impact on the parts of the world and communities affected most by the pollution and fires caused by unsustainable battery disposal.

Additionally, a big part of Recycle My Battery’s mission and method is focused on engaging with young people, educating them, and empowering them to take action about the causes they care about in the world.

While the operations have so far mostly been focused on the US, which would not generally be classed as an underserved country, it focuses on young people, and often young people in minority communities. I also see Recycle My Battery as a global solution. I am working very hard to expand it to young people in other countries, such as India, where many communities are some of the most underserved in the world, and many of our 300+ volunteers are from these countries.

The volunteers come from all over the world, including the US, India, Canada, UAE, and other countries. This brings a lot of diversity and a wide range of skills and perspectives that have helped to provide unique insight and improve the direction of the organization.

Recycle My Battery is also entirely staffed by young people, with more than 300 school kids working as registered volunteers. They are members of precisely the demographics we are trying to serve. This means that they understand the mindset and can provide unique insights into the direction of the organization.

As I mentioned in my previous answer, the organization is made up of exactly the demographics that we are targeting i.e. young people around the world, including in some of the communities heavily affected (now or in the future) by climate change.

These volunteers have played an integral part in the design and implementation of Recycle My Battery’s actions, so their input has been very important and shaped the way we operate.

Innovation has always been at the heart of Recycle My Battery. One of the most innovative things is the fact that the organization is entirely run by volunteer schoolchildren. This makes Recycle My Battery unique among similar recycling organizations and one of the very few non-profits in the world that is led and operated entirely by children.

While this may seem like a disadvantage, it has, in fact, helped us to achieve our primary goals, namely to increase awareness and recycling rates, particularly among young people. When they learn about the work, many young people are inspired by seeing people like themselves making a real difference in the world for an important cause. Often, these children choose to join up themselves, resulting in a volunteer force of more than 300 children now running the organization.

I believe this innovative approach is a powerful and replicable way to mobilize young people to work for positive environmental causes. Young people are innately concerned with the world they are going to grow up in, so they are highly motivated to enact change if encouraged and inspired in the right ways, and the work of Recycle My Battery proves this.

Another innovative element of Recycle My Battery’s approach has been using partnerships as a way to level up operational capabilities, reach more people, and recycle more batteries. We prioritize networking with influential figures in industry, other related non-profits, and policy-makers, and we have had great success with this approach.

One example of this is the partnership with Call2Recycle, one of the largest recycling non-profits in the world, to help install and transport battery bins. Another would be the efforts made to engage with policy makers at city, state, and national level to raise awareness of underreported issues and to try to change future policies.

My goals for Recycle My Battery in the next year are to equal the total performance of the last three years by recycling at least another 250,000 batteries. In terms of our educational campaigns, I am aiming to reach another 10 million people over the next year.

I think that, with the infrastructure now in place across the US, multiple partnerships with other organizations, and growing momentum with our educational campaigns, this is definitely achievable. Additionally, we are in the process of expanding to multiple other countries, such as Canada and India, where we will undoubtedly be able to collect many more batteries and reach many more people with our campaigns.

As I was recently announced as CNN Heroes Young Wonder (one of the two kids from the whole world), my initiative got the required traction and I am confident that I can reach my target mentioned above if we work as a team.

The main technology involved in our solution is the modern recycling technology required to effectively recycle used batteries. The process of recovering meaningful amounts of metals and disposing of the waste in a sustainable way is expensive and requires specialized equipment in dedicated recycling facilities, so it is not available in large parts of the world.

A big part of Recycle My Battery’s work involves sourcing these facilities and improving community access to them by building partnerships with other waste-management organizations and installing bins in public places.

Beyond this, we also heavily rely on technology to achieve our other mission: to educate people about the importance of battery recycling. As a small non-profit organization, we do not have the resources to run large-scale campaigns using traditional media, so we rely on online media. This includes YouTube, email marketing, online conferences, and so on to engage with people all over the world.

The best way to estimate this would be the number of people reached by Recycle My Battery’s educational campaigns and media. To date, we have reached an estimated 10 million people.

In the next year, we expect to reach a further 10 million people.

As a non-profit organization, our main barrier to growth is always funding. With more funding, we can scale faster by installing more recycling bins around the world and running more educational campaigns.

Another limitation is the number of volunteers we can recruit. However, we already have a force of over 300 volunteers, so the main limitation is funding.

Recycle My Battery has forged multiple partnerships to expand its reach and achieve its goals. Some of the most important are:

• Call2Recycle: One of the world's largest battery recycling non-profit organizations, Call2Recycle supplies the bins and recycling infrastructure for many of Recycle My Battery’s recycling bins in North America.

• AloeEcell: An Indian battery recycling non-profit organization, Aloe Ecell supplies much of the recycling infrastructure for Recycle My Battery’s Indian operations.

Ecowrap: An Indian recycling-based business, Ecowrap’s recent partnership with Recycle My Battery will provide specialized battery containers for people to use in their homes, enabling people to separate their waste easily. The company will then purchase the full containers and sell the waste, creating an excellent incentive for at-home recycling.

Recycle My Battery is a non-profit organization. We are run by volunteers and entirely funded by donations, grants, prize money, and partnerships with other organizations.

Recycle My Battery is a non-profit organization. We are run by volunteers and entirely funded by donations, grants, prize money, and partnerships with other organizations.

Looking ahead, we will continue this model of funding and rely on scaling up our campaigning, grant applications, and funding drives to generate more income.

Overall, our expenses are very low relative to the scale of the operations, so we do not require huge investment to expand globally.