1) Story from David Chiang - Cerritos High Branch, California Ever since I have joined Teens Against E-waste, my mom and I have been reaching out towards all of our friends and family. We have been asking them if instead of throwing away their batteries, they might give them to us. We would go to everybody's house and collect the batteries to help preserve and protect our environment. In a couple of months we were able to collect 654 batteries from generous friends and family who also wanted to make a difference and help protect our world. 2) TAE Leaders Met with U.S Congressman Alan Lowenthal to Discuss E-waste Policy Change and Received the Certificate of Recognition TAE President Joshua Lou, Co-Vice President Katelyn Gan, Cambridge VA Branch President Kevin Waldman, Troy High Branch President Jacqueline Zhou, and Carmel Valley Branch President Bryan Huang met with U.S. Congressman Alan Lowenthal in his office to discuss e-waste policy change. They also received the Certificate of Recognition on behalf of Teens Against E-waste for "collecting over 300,000 batteries" and "advocacy and impactful action [that] is greatly appreciated locally and around the world." Congratulations! Stories written by multiple TAE branches. Formatted into a blog post by the Communications Committee. Tags:
1) TAE Leaders Received the Certificate of Recognition from California State Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva TAE President Joshua Lou led a group of branch leaders (Kevin Waldman, Jacqueline Zhou, Daniel Nicasio, and Mugilan Nambi) to meet with California State Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and Buena Park Mayor Sunny Park at the Dump Day Event co-hosted by the California Department of Transportation on October 22nd. They received the Certificate of Recognition on behalf of Teens Against E-waste for our “commitment and dedication in helping the community” and “making a difference in creating an overall greener environment.” Congratulations! 2) Branch of the Month Story from Joshua Lou and Caroline Wang—Oxford Academy and Lynbrook Branches, California We partnered with Google to run 1MB drives at its Mountain View (headquarters), Sunnyvale, and Irvine sites to celebrate 2022 International Recycle Week! We reached out to and worked with Google’s Environmental Health and Safety managers of the North American region, facility coordinators, and many service teams on seven campuses of three Google sites, covering 38 buildings. Together, more than 70,000 batteries were collected and recycled! Many thanks to Google’s partnership and great contributions to our 1MB campaign for sustainability and a greener planet for all! 3) Branch of the Month Story from John Lee—Rancho San Joaquin Branch, California Now that school had started, it was hard to fit in time for collecting batteries. But on 10/22/2022, I still managed to collect over 5 boxes of used e-waste with students of other branches! It was a very hard 5 hours under the chilly weather… but in the end, it was all worth it! I was also able to collect many batteries from my neighborhood. 4) Story from Katelyn Gan, Andy Yuan, and John Lee—Sage Hill, Jeffrey Trail, & Rancho San Joaquin Branches, California In celebration of International E-waste Day, the Newport Beach E-waste event was held on October 22 and was a great success! As volunteers collecting e-waste, we saw hundreds of cars coming with all sorts of e-waste, from TVs, to chargers, to PlayStations. During the five hours of the drive, the thing we remember the most was how the people who came to recycle kept on saying how we should collaborate with the community more and host more e-waste collection drives, as there was much more e-waste at home that they couldn’t bring on that day. Overall, the collection drive was definitely a success, and it was eye-opening as a volunteer to see thousands of pounds of e-waste being recycled in such a short amount of time. During the 5-hour drive, we collected more than 5,000 pounds of e-waste and 4,000 used batteries. There will be another two similar events in December, one for the city of Lake Forest and one for a senior center in Irvine. We all look forward to them! 5) Story from Grace Gan--Milliken Mills Branch, Ontario, Canada The Milliken Mills branch held its first ever battery collection event in honor of International E-Waste Day from October 3rd to October 14th! This was able to be successfully completed after days of planning between teacher advisors, environment club (Green Inc) executives, social media coordinators, and school administration in late September -- it was amazing to see so many people passionate for this cause. On October 14th, the batteries were organized and counted by student volunteers to total 1,665, the winning student brought nearly 200 herself and won our prize for Dairy Queen ice cream! 6) Here is a video from Siqi Hu--Temma JHS Branch, Japan Here is a video provided by Siqi Hu, Founder and President of the TAE Temma JHS Branch in Osaka, Japan, and edited and voice-overed in English by Alen Zhang, the Assistant Director of the TAE Operations Committee. The video showed one of the trash recycling areas of a residential community in Osaka, Japan. The residents are required to separate the waste into categories such as cardboard boxes, glass bottles, plastic bottles (labels must be taken off), other plastics, batteries, and miscellaneous trash. Batteries have their own specific collection box. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd58mtoLE7B-jk5oEM7Yo2g - Follow this link to watch Hongyi’s video and other videos in the TAE YouTube channel. Stories written by multiple TAE branches. Formatted into a blog post by the Communications Committee. Tags:
1) Here is the story from Jaqueline Zhou - Troy High Branch September was a fruitful month for the TAE Troy Branch. With the school year starting soon, we began a campaign to inspire many of our branch members here at Troy to create their own branches, ultimately resulting in 7 new branches being recruited! In addition, to celebrate Recycle Week (September 18-24), we got our branch set up as a club at Troy and recruited many fresh new members (over 55 students put their names down on our sign-up sheets) at a school-wide club fair. This was accomplished with many social media posts, such as through Instagram (our handle is @taetroy!) and posting on our school’s Discord student server. With our club officially established, we began planning our first club meeting. We also introduced a new tradition: cookies for batteries! Anyone who brought 20 or more batteries to the club meeting received a cookie. We’re looking forward to hosting more battery and e-waste collections, as well as developing a stronger TAE team here at Troy! 2) Here is the story from Kevin Waldman - Cambridge VA Branch Our branch has participated in many Teens Against E-Waste collection activities, including hosting a school drive with a drive-by class party, co-hosting a district-wide Open House battery drive, and co-hosting college campus events to celebrate Recycle Awareness Week. We have also worked with other TAE branches to run battery collections at the weekly Concert in the Park each Saturday during the past summer, where the community donated their batteries while they listened to music. We also hosted the final community drive at the City's Civic Expo as part of the National Night Out. 3) Here is the story from Joshua Lou - Oxford Academy Branch To celebrate 2022 International Recycle Awareness Week, TAE Oxford Academy Branch and Cambridge VA Branch co-hosted two events with college students from the Environmental Club of Cerritos College. We organized a three-week battery recycling event from September 6th until 23rd, followed by a free e-waste collection event on September 24th, Saturday, 10am-2pm. Volunteers from Acaciawood Branch and Troy High Branch also came to help. Together, we collected 20,000+ batteries and 10,000+ pounds of other e-waste! We were exhausted after hours of work, especially when temperatures reached over 90°F, but it was well-rewarding to see community members' enthusiastic responses to recycling e-waste and protecting our environment. The Press-Telegram advertised our event, and the Cerritos College Press Release reported the results. 4) Here is the story from Sophie Saibi - SVINTL Branch For the TAE global events during International Recycle Week, TAE SVINTL Branch reached out to Warburton Place Senior Center in Santa Clara. We met the activities coordinator, Dee, and collected 159 batteries on the first day. We left a collection box there and will continue working with them! 5) Here is the story from Kevin Li - Bellarmine Branch We reached out to the president of Penitencia Neighborhood Association and successfully established a partnership with them. We then did a battery collection around the Panitencia neighborhood during the International Recycle Week and collected over 1000 batteries. 6) Here is the story from Caroline Wang - Lynbrook Branch We continued collecting lots of batteries from a few senior apartments. We participated in the ocean protection event “Sharks and Mermaid parade” in San Francisco and advocated TAE at the event. 7) Here is the story from Juniper Jones - Canyon Springs STEM Academy Branch This month was an exciting month for the Canyon Springs STEM Academy Branch! We teamed up with Cerritos College students and asked them to collect and drop off their batteries at specific locations across the Cerritos College campus. One student (pictured above with permission) collected 1126 batteries! She reported that it was a very heavy load. What a win-win for the student and the environment! 8) Here is the story from Ayden Kim - Beatty Branch I have gone to my parents' shops and placed posters with boxes. In Korean it says collecting batteries. I have also been putting posters on the streets to ask people to recycle their batteries in the provided boxes. 9) Here is a video from Hongyi Lu - Raffles Institution Branch, Singapore I took this video in a shopping mall called Junction 8 in Singapore. The E-waste bin is in a large electronics appliances shop. Bins like the one in my video can be found in more than 300 locations all around Singapore. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd58mtoLE7B-jk5oEM7Yo2g - Follow this link to watch Hongyi’s video and other videos in the TAE YouTube channel.
Stories written by multiple TAE branches. Formatted into a blog post by the Communications Committee. Tags:
 In 2018, Canada’s households reported almost 11 million tons of incinerated and trashed waste – which averages 725kg per household. Despite this extravagant number, only 1% of this amount was diverted from landfills that year. When looking at electronic waste specifically, the numbers aren’t much better: only 38% of dead electronics avoid the landfill in Ontario. Given that Ontario is one of the few provinces across Canada that has implemented recycling regulations, why isn’t this number lower?
The answer to this question lies in Canada’s current treatment towards e-waste. A Statistics Canada survey compares different recycling methods taken by households that had e-waste to dispose of in 2017 and 2019. Of those 6 results, sending the waste to a depot center is still the most frequented option of disposal in both years, averaging a 4.5% increase across electronics, with the most disposed products being monitors, printers, and AV equipment at 65% in 2019. It’s great news that households are becoming more aware of proper disposal methods, but there is still a long way to go before this number can truly be called efficient. While recycling is one of the primary ways to diminish the environmental damage that e-waste brings, looking at ways to reduce waste is more effective, as it tackles the problem at its base rather than dealing with its side effects. The second most popular option for these households was to continue holding onto them – this averaged 21% of the households in 2019. This is quite a large percentage of electronic waste, which the Ontario government recognizes as something to improve upon. Effective January of 2021, the government introduced a regulation in 2020 that holds producers financially responsible for their products’ waste. The Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA) is tasked with monitoring producers to ensure their continuous cooperation, which will force producers to take a greater part in reducing costs and educating consumers. A prime example of this encouraged corporate responsibility is Nokia. The company plans to collaborate with small business Greener Acres Inc. to use recycled electronic waste to produce and distribute smart poles of high speed internet across the province – starting from 2019, this is predicted to nearly halve energy usage across Nokia products. There’s been no update on this project since then, but we remain hopeful that this plan comes to fruition. This innovation is highly encouraged by Ontario’s new policy, which not only incentivizes consumers to send their old electronics towards a useful cause but also begins reducing the amount of e-waste in the market. This is just the first step of many in the right direction of e-waste management and hopefully, into a future of zero waste in Canada. Written by Grace Gan, Ontario, Canada Tags:
A few country examples are described below, to provide you a sense about how you may need to conduct a bit of research locally before you know how you can help recycle batteries. US In the US, only one state, California, requires all alkaline batteries to be recycled. In other US states, individuals can purchase battery recycling kits used to ship batteries to recyclers. Some stores such as IKEA also collect alkaline batteries for recycling. However, some chain stores which advertise battery recycling (such as Best Buy) often only accept rechargeable batteries. In the US, at Earth911 Recycling Search, type in “Batteries” and your zip code, a list of drop-off locations and types of batteries they accept can be found. Canada Among Canada’s ten provinces and three territories, only four provinces (British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba) have battery stewardship and recycling regulation. For example, in Ontario, starting in July 2020, it is battery producers’ responsibility for collecting and reusing, refurbishing or recycling their batteries when consumers discard them. The required collection rate was set at 40% for 2020, which will increase over time to 50% for 2025. Producers will pay service providers (including haulers, refurbishers, processors and general contractors such as Call2Recycle) to fulfill their responsibility of recycling batteries. Free battery drop-off locations are widely available in Ontario, such as in libraries, pharmacies, hardware and electronic stores. In Canada, at Call2Recycle Locator, type in your zip code, and there will be a list of drop-off locations identified in your neighborhood. European Union (27 countries) In the past, used batteries ended up at landfill sites. In 2006, the EU Battery Directive regulated the manufacturing and disposal of batteries and accumulators in the EU to protect human health and the environment from hazardous substances. The EU Battery Directive requires producers to properly label their battery products. They must finance collection and recycling programs, as well as public awareness campaigns for battery waste disposal. In addition, they may not charge a fee for separate collection at the time of disposal. Learn more: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/used-household-batteries https://www.call2recycle.ca https://rpra.ca/programs/batteries/ https://ec.europa.eu/environment/topics/waste-and-recycling/batteries-and-accumulators_en Written by Amelia Halverson, Ontario, Canada Tags:
 Over the period of 2020 to 2021, there has been a rapid increase in the number of people who watch/purchase TVs, especially due to the massive global pandemic and most people having to isolate themselves at home. Though TVs have brought us a lot of entertainment this past year, electronics companies have been hiding a big secret that may be more dangerous than you think. For decades, television producers have been putting toxic organohalogen flame retardant chemicals (OFRs) into their products, encased in plastic casings. These televisions are sold at major U.S. retailers like Best Buy and Amazon. Because of this, a lot of our TVs are part of a large; and growing, source of toxic pollutants in our homes, environment, and workplaces. To add more salt to the wound, they pose serious health threats. When you dispose/recycle televisions that contain OFRs, they can potentially release dioxins which are among the most toxic chemicals known to science. Workers and people who live in the vicinity can breathe in these harmful chemicals and face medical problems. Household fires can also release these chemicals, which has led to firefighters supporting the efforts to ban flame retardants. Though the situation may seem unchangeable, there is still hope. Best Buy; a major electronics company, has launched a chemicals policy with the goal to reduce the use of chemicals. They are heading in the right direction, even if there are still a lot of things to improve on in their policies. Let's just hope that more companies hop on the bandwagon! Learn more: https://saferchemicals.org/2020/05/20/toxic-tvs-best-buys-step-in-the-right-direction-should-go-further/ Written by Amelia Halverson, Ontario, Canada
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