Wastage

[johnridley]

I don't even want to get started on the colossal amount of waste I see at the office every day. I'll mention probably the most minor one though.

We have a "battery recycle" bin at work. It's pretty nice, they just put a box on a cabinet near the supply cabinet, and people throw in their used batteries. Occasionally someone will be going by the recycle center that takes them, and will take them with. I've done it a couple of times. A good idea really; it gets hundreds of batteries a year that probably would just get tossed out otherwise.

I've discovered something; apparently nobody has battery testers. When something needs batteries, they grab some out of a junk drawer. When it dies, they throw all the batteries away. Best I can tell, they often grab 2 or 3 new batteries and one stone dead one.

Every once in a while when I feel like clearing my eyes for a while, I wander over with a container and grab a dozen or two AA and AAA cells. I take them back to my desk and test them. Invariably, out of 10, at least 2 will be essentially brand new cells, another 4 or 5 will be still in actually pretty good shape, the rest will be either very weak or stone dead.

At this point, I've got so damn many good AA cells in the drawer of my desk that I've started to burn them in my bike's lights, even though I've completely converted our house over to rechargables. I think I can run alkalines in there indefinitely off the recycle bin.

I did the same years ago when I ran the Palm Pilot that used AAA cells. I never bought a AAA for it. I'm currently running my MP3 player from AAAs, but those are a lot more rare; I wish it took AA cells instead.

Comments

[traveller42.livejournal.com]

I had a similar experience at my work. I'd gotten the team I was on and the team we supported to give me their dead batteries. I was using them in voice recorders, radios, GPS, transmitters, and pagers.

They were giving them to me faster than I could use them.

I do own a "battery extender" that basically puts a surface charge on a non-rechargeable battery. I usually get days to months in the pager. The other stuff was more variable and less reliable in that the battery really was dead for that application.

I now have several sets of rechargeables, but I still am working through the backlog of primaries.

[whl.livejournal.com]

I had a really cheap MP-3 player I used when I went walking on my lunch hour. I was in the process of making a AA adapter for it when I discovered the pleasures of bookmarking when playing back long files, and replaced it with a Shuffle.

A couple of metal screws, an appropriate diameter wooden dowel, and a Radio Shack AA holder (and probably some double sided tape) and you should be set, and have greater battery life.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I've thought about doing that, but since almost all of my listening is with the player hanging around my neck on a lanyard, usually while I'm riding a bike, doubling its size and weight and adding lots of rough edges by taping on a AA holder isn't that appealing. I may do it anyway, though. I only paid $10 for this player. I might even decide to do surgery on the case at some point.

[bwittig.livejournal.com]

I try to be careful about putting like charged battery pairs in my electronics, but I never considered testing them when the device says battery low. Doh!

We are going thru a period of "don't spend anything" at work. Last week I needed AA batteries for my phone headset and the Admin only had 2 batteries left. Guess I need to bring in my battery tester and go thru the recycle bin.