Recharging to Offset Carbon Emissions

Non rechargeable batteries may seem like a small pebble in the large pond of carbon emissions but the lasting effects they have on our environment en masse is devastating. Clogging landfills with toxic chemicals that leak into ground water, using up metal resources and releasing carbon during the manufacturing process adding to global warming, non rechargeable batteries are cheap, convenient and extremely harmful. Not to mention their effect on the old dead weight of guilt better known as your carbon footprint.

Not everyone can afford solar panels on the roof or a wind generator in the back yard, but we can spend a couple of extra bucks and buy rechargeable batteries. Of course, they aren’t as cheap and less convenient, as they need to be recharged and take time to do so, but they do reduce carbon emissions. We use the same two batteries over and over effectively recycling, reusing and reducing all at the same time.

So what to do with all those non rechargeables we have lying around the house? The ones we feel guilty about putting in the regular trash but don’t get picked up by the local municipality except maybe twice a year? What to do when we are running out of room what with all the broken hairdryers, computers, cell phones, used motor oil and half empty paint cans we are also stock piling waiting for that toxic waste date to show up on the municipal calendar?

What to do? What to do?

Well, turns out there are scrap and salvage yards that will actually purchase these non rechargeable batteries from you for a nominal fee and recycle them along with the large scrap metal waste they collect in the form of rusty pipes, old cars and worn out ovens. Check with local scrap dealers to get specific details for your area. Aaah, another way to offset carbon emissions. Doesn’t it make you want to smile?

And if you are feeling extremely ambitious and even a little flush, you may want to consider the latest in rechargeable batteries, the USB cell battery which actually plugs into your lap top to recharge, reducing energy waste by having a separate recharging unit plugged in.

Finally, I can take my huge box of old batteries out from under the sink and trade them in for just a small pack of rechargeables. One more item off my save the planet checklist.