Country: Russia

School/ organization: Lyceum №28, Kirov

Delegation leader/ teacher: Marina Konopleva

Students: Aleksei Zubarev, Natalia Sadovnikova, Anna Bezdenezhnykh

Partner organization: the “Cuprite” enterprise

The majority of gadgets work from batteries which contain harmful heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel and zinc). They cannot be thrown out to litter boxes.

Our goals:

• To inform pupils and their parents about batteries damage and the collecting points in Kirov.

• To organize the Action of collecting batteries at school.

All batteries contain toxic elements. If toxins contact with the soil and the air they cause harm for people's health. Poisonous elements even in small amounts can cause oncological, reproductive and other serious diseases. In our city there are only 3 containers for used batteries. There is also the «Cuprite» enterprise which collects batteries from the population. Workers sort them and then bring to the only battery recycling factory in the country to the city of Chelyabinsk. This factory recycles about 1000 tons of batteries a year.

At school we carried out an Action of collecting batteries. Pupils, their parents and teachers brought them to school. We collected and hand over 52 kg of batteries to «Cuprite» for recycling.

There is a Robotics club in our school where children can create robots under the supervision of a teacher and show them at various exhibitions and competitions. After these events there are a many batteries left. Not all of them are completely discharged. That’s why the member of our team Aleksei Zubarev made the robot which can define a battery charge. If the battery is not completely used, it can be applied on devices with average energy consumption.