2017 Cinncinnati, Ohio, USA
Lexi Meckes is a nanny for three kids after
school and is always having to switch out old batteries in game systems. Through this experience she became aware of how many batteries were being tossed out. She started becoming more concerned about the problem as she researched the chemicals inside every single battery and began thinking about the impact these batteries have on our environment. As a senior at Sycamore High School she has been involved in Environmental Club, AP Environmental class, and engineering. With her background knowledge and interest she became motivated to help solve this problem.
When Lexi was introduced to the Caring For Our Watersheds project she knew right away that she wanted to work on a project concerning batteries. She saw a big problem in her community and figured out a simple, direct way she could improve this issue. For her Caring For Our Watersheds 
project, Lexi put in place a battery-recycling program in all the schools within the Sycamore School District. These pails are located in the front offices of all schools and have begun overflowing with all the donations from community residents. She hopes recycling batteries becomes just as routine as recycling paper and plastic. With this permanent project Lexi hopes to educate her community on the simple actions they can take to make a big difference.
After the project got started, the company changed their prices and it became too expensive to mail the filled buckets, so Lexi set up a meeting with a local recycling company to discuss where she can send or take the batteries to locally for recycling. Although Lexi has experienced a few bumps along the way, her project has definite staying power because of the broad community support and participation.
She hopes this project will grow into a citywide program and prevent thousands of batteries from ending up in the landfill.