The Dublin Mayor’s Council is an organization that empowers local youth to bring change to the city of Dublin. The council’s projects’ aims include, among many others, assisting the elderly and improving environmental literacy. This last mission was undertaken by Yashas Shashidhara, a junior at Dublin High who decided to set his goal on helping the environment as project manager of Environmental Advocacy.

The Environmental Advocacy project is dedicated to advancing environmental literacy and promoting sustainable practices among members of the community. According to Yashas Shashidhara, the impetus for the initiative arose from his observations concerning the dearth of comprehensive environmental data in Dublin and the associated challenges this poses. He also recounts the difficulties that his family often had in dealing with dead batteries around the house: they couldn’t simply throw them away because that would be harmful to the environment. In an effort to address these problems, his project has formulated a range of strategies for the current year, including the compilation of data on environmental impacts, the creation of a publicly accessible environmental database, the initiation of a recycling drive, the organization of a city-wide innovation competition, the presentation of Earth Day lessons at elementary schools, and the coordination of regular park cleanups throughout the year. 

Recently, Yashas and his team were able to partner with Call2Recycle and collect batteries around Dublin and ship them to proper recycling centers. Call2Recycle is a not-for-profit organization that provides a free battery and cell phone recycling service in the United States and Canada. Its mission is to promote and facilitate the responsible recycling of batteries and cell phones in a way that protects human health and the environment. To this end, Call2Recycle operates a network of collection sites where individuals and businesses can drop off their used batteries and cell phones for recycling. The organization also partners with retailers, manufacturers, and other organizations to promote its recycling program and increase the number of collection sites available to the public.

Thanks to its cooperation with Call2Recycle, the Environmental Advocacy group was able to collect over 300 pounds of batteries and over 10,000 batteries in total. In the future, the project plans to partner with other organizations to expand its outreach and continue to save the environment one dead battery at a time.