14 Year Old Environmental Hero

Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Or, leave your name and email below to receive Jim Dreaver's simple and profound 3 page PDF, The Shift That Frees Us.

Alex Lin is 14 and lives in Westerly, Rhode Island. He’s into sports, hangs out with friends and worries about the future of the Earth. But unlike most teenagers—or people of any age—he’s taken big steps to tackle environmental problems.

It all started when he was 11 and read a newspaper article about e-waste, toxic chemicals from discarded computers that leech into groundwater and soil. “I didn’t even know that was a problem,” he says. “But I thought we could do something about it.”

And Alex has done a lot. With friends, he founded the Westerly Innovations Network (WIN), and testified in favour of a proposed state law to prohibit computers from being dumped in the garbage. When that failed, he and his friends wrote their own version of the bill, which passed as a local ordinance in Westerly and was approved by the Rhode Island legislature. It goes into effect in August.

What should people do with outdated computers anyway? “The best thing is to recycle them,” Alex says. “So we asked people in the community to donate old computers to us.”

From OdeMagazine.com

In this inspiring video, Alex delivers an acceptance speech for an award he received. Another wonderful example of Youth in Action!