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Le Ho (1981 - ) Owner of one of the largest privately owned and operated waste management companies in Sydney.
Introduction Le Ho is a Vietnamese refugee who took over a
commercial waste management company for recyclables in Sydney and turned it
into a multi-million dollar company with expansion plans to other states
this year.
“She has this attitude that she will never, ever
give up. When she started with the business in 2010 she had just had a baby,
and then she tackled a male-dominated industry with hardly any capital and
she was running it from her car -- she didn’t even have an office. Even when
she was turning over $5 million she was still running it from her car. Generation Y female entrepreneur, Le Ho, who owns the company Capital City Waste Services is featured in #IfSheCanICan, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. She says she would “get in the truck at 6am” because people in the male-dominated industry “were making bets on how long it would take me to go under”. (Source: SMH)
Experiences and Opportunities Le Ho has been the
Director of Capital City Waste Services Pty Ltd since January 2009 when she
brought the company for $50K. Education Le Ho studied at the University of Sydney.
Links:
Battery Recycling? Too hard or an opportunity? Primary Middle Secondary
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Critical and creative thinking Australian Curriculum General Capability: Ethical Understanding Australian Curriculum General Capability: Numeracy Australian Curriculum General Capability: ICT Capability Australian Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Sustainability Priority Cooperative Learning Activity
Background Information The Commonwealth Department of the Environment states:
"Batteries are sold in a national market, they contain
hazardous substances which have the potential to harm the environment if
they are not effectively managed, and their disposal involves a cost to
governments.
Clean Up Australia - a leading environmental organisation states: "Batteries are made up of heavy metals and other toxic elements, including nickel, cadmium, alkaline, mercury, nickel metal hydride, and lead acid. It is these elements that can threaten our environment if not properly discarded and/or recycled. Unfortunately, batteries which end up in landfills and incinerators leak into the environment, causing a serious health risk to humans and animals.
Surprisingly, Australia does not currently have a national recycling scheme for non-rechargeable batteries. As a result, leading members of the battery industry have recently joined together to investigate the initiation of a national battery collection and recycling scheme. At the moment, the only batteries that can be recycled in the country are lead-acid batteries (used in cars). All other types of batteries are either sent to local landfills or shipped to be recycled overseas." (Source: Clean Up Australia)
1. Read the following Fact Sheet (PDF) from Clean Up Australia Summarise what you have read into 10 main facts that you found interesting. What are these key facts? Share with a partner. Did you have the same facts? Together reduce your lists down to 5 facts that you both agree on. As a class, combine all 5 facts and reduce it down to 10 - 15 facts. 2. You are to take on the enterprise spirit of Le and see how you would deal with the problem of only 5% of batteries being recycled. Firstly, you need to research the problem: How many old batteries are:
Develop a survey individually to find out about these old batteries. Don't forget questions about re-chargeable batteries and recycling batteries too! With a partner, select 5 questions that you both agree on. As a class, create 10 questions that you all agree on for the class survey. Nominate two students to create the survey using Survey Monkey. You need to insert your 15 facts into the start of the survey to inform all your participants. 3. How will you get your community - class, school, neighbourhood - to use this survey? What strategies will you develop to get this community to fill out your survey? A competition? How will this work? How many responses will make this survey a worthwhile representation of what happens in your community? Write down all your ideas and brainstorm as a class. What will your campaign look like? 4. Now that you have got most of your community to fill out your survey, what will you do with this knowledge? You are to create a social media campaign to encourage your community, other schools and then Australia nationally to recycle their batteries! Remember the aim is to increase the percentage of battery recycling from 5% to ??% What social media will you use? Why? Would you create an app? What would this app encourage? 5. Test out your campaign on your school community. How successful was it? Does it need any refinements? 6. Ask another school to use your campaign. You will need to introduce it to this next school's Principal and then with permission from them, to their whole school. Create a persuasive argument and add images and sound bites to a Sway presentation to present to the Principal and their school community. What was the response? What needed to change? 7. Contact the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative [ABRI] with your ideas and suggestions about how to get Australian school children helping their initiative.
8. Work out your media strategy [including traditional media - papers, radio even TV] to get other schools involved. What will this look like?
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