When Nihal Tammana was just 10 years old, he heard a news report about a lithium-ion battery exploding at a waste disposal plant—and when he learned about the environmental risks of batteries being left in landfills, he decided to do something.
Tammana started the nonprofit, Recycle My Battery, and now, at 15 years old, he has already recycled over 625,000 batteries—and placed over 1,000 battery bins in schools, libraries, and businesses to make recycling easier.
Anyone can now visit RecycleMyBattery.org for instructions on how to make their schools and businesses battery recycling heroes. The teen from Monroe, New Jersey, has expanded his impact beyond the United States, too. Tammana’s story and mission were recently featured in a German educational textbook, integrating battery recycling advocacy into school curriculums.
He is also teaming up with Australia’s largest battery recycling company, so the country can adopt his initiative to place battery bins in schools nationwide.
Lately, Nihal is working on a Residual Charge Project, developing a prototype (that was confirmed by a University of Waterloo expert) to extract leftover energy from used batteries that could power the battery recycling plants.
Photo: JENS SCHLUETER / AFP / Getty Images