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Hippity Hop Hop

Do you love the Energizer Bunny?  Come on, admit it - you do. What a great marketing idea.  And maybe down deep everyone prefers the Energizer batteries because of the cute bunny associated with that brand.

I remember back in college my friends would call me the Energizer Bunny.  It was seemingly so easy to party all night, go to classes all day, take a 4 mile jog in the late afternoon, and then grab dinner at the College Deli and do it all again – for at least three nights straight.

Now if I stay up past midnight and drink more than 2.5 glasses of wine, my next day is shot.  How and when did this happen??

Anyway! Batteries are kind of scary..  they do leak all this toxic stuff… I have no idea how they would even be recycled without the people at the plant having 3-eyed kids later in life.  So I have NEVER EVER thrown away a battery.  Sometimes my cup runneth over, and once my movers were like, “uh, yeah, does this have to go?” as they motioned for the trash.  But NOW I am so excited about two things:

Better options for rechargeable batteries
Much more convenient drop offs to recycle your regular, dead batteries.  (Even Costco is installing drop offs.  If you go to Costco and don’t see one, definitely put in a request!) 

So it is different things that make me energized these days, and doing errands while emptying my box of batteries into a recycling bin does give me a bit of a jolt.  Does that make me an eco-geek? 

Off to recharge at an eco-spa.. soon.. someday.. oh yes oh yes…

Jen

Posted by: jboulden on 10/13/2006
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mike  on October 13, 2006 at 10:31 AM 1
hey everyone, when i was reading the bite today about batteries i had to find a way to tell everyone about Sanyo's eneloop recgargeable batteries. when u buy them they already are fully charged, and will stay charged if unused for a year or something. only aviable in europe and asia (i believe, correct me if anyone knows where to get them in the states), so this might not work for everyone, but i had to share. do some research if interested, i have been waiting over a year for them to come to america. www.eneloop.info
Pat  on October 13, 2006 at 11:30 AM 2
When I saw that headline: How full is your AA cup? I thought it was something about bras. How weird is that?
Heather Stephenson  on October 13, 2006 at 11:52 AM 3
You're not weird, Pat. We meant it as a pun... Happy Friday, all!
Micaela  on October 13, 2006 at 02:43 PM 4
Just wait till you're in your 40's and have a couple kids. 1 1/2 glasses and 10:00 just about do me in. Ouch! and on batteries...I guess we're lucky in Minneapolis - they pick them up with our bi-weekly recycling. Although I usually forget and I too have a cup running over.
Maureen  on October 13, 2006 at 02:57 PM 5
So how do they recycle dead batteries? I heard that we ship them to third world countries and they are taken apart by villagers. Is this true? By recycling batteries, are we just exporting our toxic wastes? If this is the case is there a better alternative to recycling the still in existant non rechargeable batteries? Inquirying Minds Want to Know.
Margaret  on October 13, 2006 at 03:25 PM 6
What if you don't have a local place to take alkaline batteries? I had a small bucket full of alkaline batteries waiting for my solid waste agency to start accepting them as hazardous waste ("coming soon!". They never did start taking it. So I eventually--after YEARS in my garage--followed their advice and threw them all in the trash (going to a secure landfill, NOT an incinerator). I still generate lots of them because I own an old house with several apartments in it, and we have LOTS of smoke detectors with battery back-up. I don't replace them until the alert starts beeping, but it's still a lot of batteries. . . (also they last longer since the wired-in detectors only use batteries as a back-up). For my other uses where only an alkaline will work, I have a great battery charger that recharges either rechargeable OR regular (alkaline) batteries. It really extends the life of the batteries. And all those batteries not-yet-dead-but-too-weak-for smoke detectors I "freecycle" to folks who use them for game machines.
Tom Harrison  on October 14, 2006 at 04:18 PM 7
We committed to changing to rechargeable batteries last year, so I went down to the CVS and bought a whole bunch, and a charger. Not sure how many, but it was a lot. So as old ones wore out, we replaced with rechargeables. What amazes me is how many batteries there are. Remote controls, smoke detectors, cameras, flashlights, and on, and on, and on. So I went back and got an additional big set. And used those up. And now I have to get another. And these NiMH batteries last very well, too. And they really don't cost that much more on the initial purchase. Which means: the impact of this is not small. Great tip!
Leah  on October 28, 2007 at 09:27 AM 8
HELP! I have an overabundance of these stupid alkaline batteries....Isn't there a site I can find out how to recycle on??? That thing "the big green box" or whatever is like $58...I'm poor. HOWEVER...I would buy it, and take it to work for everyone there to use IF someone can tell me DO YOU GET THE BOX BACK? or is it $58 per 1 time use? Ugh...what we have to go through just to try and help a little bit...
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