Every year over two billion used batteries are disposed into solid waste facilities in the United States. This is an increasing problem, fundamentally due to the extensive development in the field of new technologies that made possible that almost everyone owns at least a wireless electronic device that uses diverse types of batteries. Think of the millions of laptops, digital camcorders, cell phones, wireless hand tools, flash lights, toys, etc. sold in the market just within the recent past years and you’ll see the real environmental challenge of disposal and recycling ahead of us.

Most parts of chemical ingredients used for making batteries are highly toxic and require a consistent treatment in which we, as users who care about the environment, can do our part avoiding that used batteries are thrown away with other household waste.

We also can contribute to reduce hazardous waste, starting with prevention and, for instance, check if you have on hand used batteries before buying more.

Batteries are constantly being formulated and improved, so we can check the labels and look for batteries that have less mercury and heavy metals.

You should consider using rechargeable batteries in more power intensive devices, depending on the specific use, this may be a better option than using disposable batteries, it will also bring environmental and financial benefits.

Rechargeable batteries have become a part of our daily use of most portable electronics like cell phones, laptops, camcorders, etc., but even though we’ve been using rechargeable batteries for such a long time, the use of disposable batteries is still too high.

The main reason why most people still use disposable batteries, is because they think all rechargeable batteries have a high self-discharge rate and don’t have enough power to run some devices.

Since it’s development in 2005, Eneloop batteries offer the best of both worlds, the “special power” to run intensive applications and the fact that they come factory pre-charged, making them a great alternative to traditional alkaline batteries.

It even goes beyond that, this type of hybrid batteries can hold charge for many months, meaning that you can charge and store them for later use.

Low self-discharge rate

You can clearly see in this chart that eneloop batteries still hold a charge of over 80% in a period of 1 year.

Why use rechargeable batteries?

There are many reason for that, some of them are:

• Rechargeable batteries are more eco-friendly, you can recharge them 1000 times! That means less contamination!
• 1 Eneloop battery = 1000 disposable alkaline batteries, you can save a lot of money.
• They can be use just like any other battery, in remote controls, clocks, game systems, etc.

Cost per battery

A quality rechargeable battery costs around $3 a piece, on the other side, a quality disposable battery has a tag price of around $0.70 cents. It’s obvious that the initial cost of a rechargeable battery is several times higher than the cost of a regular battery, but savings come through time; an eneloop battery can be charged 1000 times, that equals to 1000 alkaline batteries! This means that over time, with a rechargeable battery, you would end up saving (1000*$0.70) -$3 = $697!