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By switching to rechargeables, 10,000 Biters will keep the weight of 7 elephants in waste from entering landfills every year.

COCKTAIL FACT

Batteries not included: In the 1920s, the average Miss America contestant had a 32-inch bust; today, the average is 36 inches.

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home ›   tip library ›   Eco-Electronics - Solar Battery Chargers

How full is your AA cup?

The Bite

Old batteries pile up quick. Starve a landfill by keeping a cup for old alkalines in a cup or box, and then dropping it off once a year for recycling. Next, help your wallet by switching to rechargeable batteries and solar powered gadgets to power up, sans waste.

The Benefits

  • Solar chargers that tap the power of the sun make sense for your wallet. After the initial investment, you're home-free.
  • New rechargeable batteries can be charged up to 1000 times. You'll save hundreds.
  • Rechargeable batteries come in every shape and size, from AA to D and beyond.
  • When they're dead, recycle both regular alkalines and rechargeables, since we Americans currently landfill the weight of about 5,967,000 desktop computers in batteries each year.

Personally Speaking

Jen's cup is so full that taking it in for recycling is at the top of her to-do list. It's all good in Bite techie Brett's 'hood with his Solio charger, which he uses for his mp3 player and cell phone on weekend hikes in the Bozeman mountains.

Wanna Try?

  • Power Film Foldable Solar Charger ($300) and AA/AAA Charger ($40) - originally designed for our troops, this solar film's super-light.
  • Solio - the sweetest little portable charger around. Plug into your cell phone or mp3 player for a quick fix ($100).
  • The Big Green Box - postage-paid recycling bin for as many as 40 lbs of battery waste - just take it to the post office when full ($58).
  • Green Batteries - carries (almost) every rechargeable battery under the sun, plus home plug-in options for those who live in eternal darkness and can't use solar.
  • Earth911 and Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation - locate your nearest recycling drop-off site.
  • FYI: Rechargeables lose their juice faster than non-rechargeable alkalines. As a result, you probably want to stick with conventional batteries in your smoke alarm.

Oct 13,2006


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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.


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


Biter Comments...
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

Posted by: mike | October 13, 2006 at 10:31 AM

When I saw that headline: How full is your AA cup? I thought it was something about bras. How weird is that?

Posted by: Pat | October 13, 2006 at 11:30 AM

You're not weird, Pat. We meant it as a pun... Happy Friday, all!

Posted by: Heather Stephenson | October 13, 2006 at 11:52 AM

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.

Posted by: Micaela | October 13, 2006 at 02:43 PM

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.

Posted by: Maureen | October 13, 2006 at 02:57 PM

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.

Posted by: Margaret | October 13, 2006 at 03:25 PM

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!

Posted by: Tom Harrison | October 14, 2006 at 04:18 PM

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...

Posted by: Leah | October 28, 2007 at 09:27 AM

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