Oxford Academy Branch
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Meade
Leadership Team
Joshua Lou
Founder & President
Abdullah Fattahi
Executive Board
Suvan Ravi
Executive Board
Allan Chu
Executive Board
Description of Oxford Academy Branch
The Oxford Academy Branch, the first branch of Teens Against E-waste (TAE), is located in Cypress, California. Eight months after Joshua Lou founded the nonprofit TAE and had attempted multiple research and advocacy projects to raise awareness of e-waste recycling, he reached out to the senior apartments near his home to collect used batteries for recycling. After receiving overwhelming responses and large amounts of batteries, he got so excited and thought, "We might be able to collect a million batteries!" That marked the start of the One Million Batteries (1MB) campaign in November 2021.
"I'm going to run a school event to collect batteries," Joshua told his family at the dining table on a Thursday evening, despite seeing skeptical faces. The same evening, he sent out an email to his school's Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) board members with his proposal, including the details of a schoolwide Battery Recycling Event. With the help of 18 students and adults, the results of the event were stunning—12,288 batteries were collected within two weeks (see his testimonial)!
Since then, the energy has been passed on from one student to another, and TAE has grown exponentially with dozens of branches founded in many cities, states, and countries! In July 2022, we also launched TAE's second global campaign called WEEEcycle to recycle electronic waste other than batteries. We look forward to spreading our initiatives to raise more public awareness of e-waste recycling in our communities both locally and globally.
How We Started
Our initiative to collect used batteries for recycling originated from the encouragement of senior apartment managers.
To celebrate America Recycles Day on November 15th, 2021, Joshua decided to drop off some battery collection buckets in his neighborhood. He taped his phone number on the buckets so that people could text him when the buckets were filled. Among the eight places (senior apartments, senior centers, community centers, etc.) he visited during the first week, six of them accepted his buckets with thanks and compliments.
One senior apartment manager told Joshua, "We have been waiting for you!" while handing him four bags of batteries on the spot and referring him to Kathy (pictured on the right), the manager of another senior apartment nearby. Kathy was so kind that she added "Collecting Old Batteries … drop items off in the office" in their newsletter. Ten days later, she gave Joshua 861 used batteries from the thoughtful seniors (see Joshua's testimonial blog for details)!
Picking up batteries from Kathy, a Senior Apartment Manager
Joshua said, "I originally found the idea of collecting batteries appealing because I knew my household had many used batteries just sitting around. However, little did I realize just how much others were storing batteries as well. These experiences inspired me and many other Oxford students to go and run a schoolwide battery collection event and the following events (read more on the Events page)!"
We Collaborated with Google, Schools, Colleges, and Communities to Co-host Events
1MB's first drive at Oxford
1MB partnered with Google
