Ban of non-rechargeable batteries

[brabus]

Every year we throw billions of empty batteries in landfills.

Many ideas have been discussed over the years, many projects have been drafted (e.g.: AA cells with Micro-USB charging feature), yet still every remote of the planet keeps eating standard AA/AAA cells.

In your opinion, why is this obsolete piece of technology so difficult to eradicate? Is the problem on the technical side or more on the political side?

Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.

[edy]

Technical side. Alkaline cells have a long shelf life, great for emergency use. Any kind of rechargeable will "decay" slowly after every charge, there is no guarantee they will be ready for you when you need them. They also have lower output V, and my understanding is that they also hold less power capacity. For example, Alkaline AA will be around 2500 mAh compared to NiMH at 1200-1900 mAh. I'm not talking about lithium because they also have their own problems and special circuitry required to charge cells, monitor temperature, etc..., adds cost and complications.

There is a purpose and usefulness for each type of battery. They all need to coexist. I agree that we should try for rechargeable when practical. For example, many toys and radios now use them. Computers and cellphones and now cars on various forms of lithium batteries. Great. But certainly "one-use" should never be banned. Recycled yes, but we need these batteries.

If the problem of "throwing away in landfills" is bothersome, perhaps battery companies can incentivize recycling by putting a "deposit" on each battery or providing a credit towards a new pack of batteries, like they do with empty bottles and cans. Right now battery drop-offs (and other eWaste) are found in lots of big stores like Staples, BestBuy and so on.... but there are no incentives to do so. I would love to raid the dumpsters of these eWaste bins... Likely more than half the stuff can be easily repaired or pieces cobbled together from different machines to make a better one. But rather than allowing hobbyists to "refurbish" these and get "down-cycled" (reused by people who don't need the latest and greatest hardware, put Linux on the machines and keep them as plug-in-only laptops, etc), they get sent to China or Pakistan to get picked apart by people without any safety protection and get exposed to all sorts of hazardous materials. I know down-cycled stuff will still end up being thrown away eventually, but it will at least delay things and prevent people from buying even more stuff. Obviously manufacturers don't like that, they would rather see you dump things every few years.

[BravoV]

Technical side. Alkaline cells have a long shelf life ...

Technical eh .. how about reality ... and I have many more other examples posted in this forum alone.

[tom66]

Alkaline batteries still make sense in many applications.  NiMH cells, even low-self-discharge types, still discharge quicker than an alkaline in storage or under low load. For example, in a regular wall clock, the batteries will last 5-10 years.  Why do we need to use NiMH cells in those?  The alkaline cells will cost less and consume less resources to produce, even if the rechargeable can be used a few times.  The same deal applies for remote controls.

I would say lithium AA cells would be a good place to focus energy on eliminating.  Besides some speciality applications like smoke detectors that need 10 year lifespans, these batteries are not really worthwhile compared to NiMH.  Most camera kit now uses integral Li-Ion cells, but if it does use AA cells, then NiMH can usually be substituted - most cameras are designed to function from these cells, although some may need to be configured to correctly display battery level and shut off when the cells are exhausted.

[TimFox]

If it were necessary to eliminate primary cells from the waste stream, we could mandate a recycling deposit.  Right now, it is difficult to find a recycling location for batteries near me.

[georges80]

^ in our city we put spent batteries (not car batteries) in a zip lock bag on top of our recycling bin. So, the mechanism is already there, just depends on how progressive your city/suburb is in dealing with and collecting waste.

Primary lithium cells are still the best solution for emergency equipment such as epirbs and other such devices.

cheers,
george.

[TimFox]

I used to recycle batteries at Radio Shack.  Their store locator now has nothing closer than 12 miles, requiring a drive to the suburbs.

[0xdeadbeef]

I haven't bought any non-rechargeable AA or AAA batteries in the last 20 years or so. I can't actually recall when I last bought some, but it must have been the 90s. Since Eneloops became available, these are more or less the only AA and AAA batteries I'm using (deliberately). The only non-rechargable AA/AAA batteries I own came in remotes and the like. I bought a few 9V batteries as long as there were no good alternatives available. Tried NiMH but the voltage is too low from the start. Some years ago, I replaced all of them with LiFePO4 batteries though which seem to be an ideal replacement. Other than that, Lithium coin cells are actually the only kind of non-rechargable batteries I bought in the last years and only for things like mainboard CMOS batteries where a rechargable battery wouldn't make much sense.

[janoc]

For example, Alkaline AA will be around 2500 mAh compared to NiMH at 1200-1900 mAh.

I don't think I have seen NiMH AA cells sold stores in the last decade or so that had less than 2000mAh capacity. I have several sets of Energizers that are 2400-2450mAh, even the pair of old NiCd cells I still have are 2000mAh.

You can certainly find 600mAh cells and similar but those are either cheap garbage or special purpose items, such as cells with reduced self-discharge meant for clocks and such.

[Nusa]

Technically, Alkaline cells ARE rechargeable, despite what the package says these days. It used to be a thing back before other rechargeable technologies became cheap enough for the general market. Memories.

https://zbattery.com/Recharging-Alkaline-Batteries-Fact-or-Fiction

[Cyberdragon]

Sub 1000mAh NiCd cells are often used in low power solar lamps (here in NA they are actual AA or AAA cells rather than those tiny soldered in button cells you have over there). I keep a little box of them around to swap out when one fails (also has a few NiMH and LiFePO cells). Yes, I know you should not store NiCd cells discharged, but I don't have a charger short of my bench supply, so I just chuck them when they get to 0.0V (they are cheap crap anyway).

[Bud]

This is a huge industry and a source of revenue to the governments. Cant be easily banned i'd think.

[KrudyZ]

Yes, I know you should not store NiCd cells discharged, but I don't have a charger short of my bench supply, so I just chuck them when they get to 0.0V (they are cheap crap anyway).

That is of course the real environmental concern. Buying cheap crap, containing toxic materials and chucking them after a short service life. That's how we turn the earth into a giant landfill...

[retrolefty]

I haven't bought any non-rechargeable AA or AAA batteries in the last 20 years or so. I can't actually recall when I last bought some, but it must have been the 90s. Since Eneloops became available, these are more or less the only AA and AAA batteries I'm using (deliberately). The only non-rechargable AA/AAA batteries I own came in remotes and the like. I bought a few 9V batteries as long as there were no good alternatives available. Tried NiMH but the voltage is too low from the start. Some years ago, I replaced all of them with LiFePO4 batteries though which seem to be an ideal replacement. Other than that, Lithium coin cells are actually the only kind of non-rechargable batteries I bought in the last years and only for things like mainboard CMOS batteries where a rechargable battery wouldn't make much sense.

 You might want to check out this rechargable 9V Li battery that includes charger and switching regulator.

[tom66]

At one point Energizer sold 2650mAh AA Ni-MH cells although I think these were discontinued as their self-discharge rate was abysmal (30% capacity loss per month) and cycle life poor (300-400 cycles.)

But they were available.

[David Hess]

Alkaline cells have good performance for their price, their materials are relatively non-toxic, and they have better availability than similarly sized primary and secondary cells of other chemistries.

[M0HZH]

This is a huge industry and a source of revenue to the governments. Cant be easily banned i'd think.

I think this is completely unfounded. It is much more expensive even in the long term to use rechargeables than disposables.

Quick math:

8x AA Rechargeable + charger = £22.22 (£2.775 per cell)
100x AA Disposable = £21.99 (£0.21 per cell)

This means a rechargeable cell costs roughly 13 times more than a disposable.

In the most common use for AA batteries (remote controls), batteries last 1-2 years; to get your money's worth out of a rechargeable set you'd have to use the same set for about 20 years. There are no rechargeables with a lifetime of 20 years of continuous duty, even the TV's average life cycle is 7.5 years, the charger will probably break or get lost many times by then. And you also have to live with not using the TV remote for 8-12 hours because the batteries are charging, every few months, for 20 years.

[Cyberdragon]

Yes, I know you should not store NiCd cells discharged, but I don't have a charger short of my bench supply, so I just chuck them when they get to 0.0V (they are cheap crap anyway).

That is of course the real environmental concern. Buying cheap crap, containing toxic materials and chucking them after a short service life. That's how we turn the earth into a giant landfill...

At least with the replaceable types you can fix them by changing the battery rather than throwing the whole thing away (not that the lights last much longer without corroding anyway). But it's what makes those thing cheap, simple, and compact, hence why they are so common. They could make them with better batteries that didn't fail, but then they wouldn't be cheap crap anymore.

They do sell replacement "solar" batteries which are a bit better (closer to regular old fashioned NiCds), but agian...the whole thing will rust away eventually anyway. If they made the seal on the panel better so it wouldn't leak after awhile, then things would stop getting corroded as fast and it would be better on the batteries as well so they could have full charge cycles without fighting corroding contacts.

In fact, I have a recently deceased patient right here, just changed the battery recently (with a charged one from the box), but it still died. Let's see what part of this POS bit the dust.

Ah, insect ingress...get out of there! No? Ok then...*bug spray...water*. Pests removed.

Now the battery (I saw a flash of light, so possible just bug crap on the contacts).

Of course, battery at 500mV and falling now, negative spring corroded...time for filing.

EDIT: The springs appear to be made of cheap steel (ok for inside only stuff, but not outside) which is also part of the problem.

[JPortici]

In your opinion, why is this obsolete piece of technology so difficult to eradicate? Is the problem on the technical side or more on the political side?

Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.

There are safety low power devices that rely on the battery being non-rechargable. Non recharghable batteries have a more gradual discharge curve and can handle extreme temperatures better.
For example, avalanche reserach beacons strongly recommend alkaline batteries

[edy]

I have a solution.... Instead of batteries in remote controls and other low-energy "on demand only" use devices, just put in a hand-crank generator and a supercap. Give the wheel a few turns to charge the supercap and you will probably have enough power to send a few commands to the TV for the next few hours. No batteries needed, ever! 



Or you could use a Faraday Flashlight ("Shake a Gen") concept to charge up a supercap. Just shake your remote and never use batteries again:



Seriously, remotes today shouldn't need batteries. They are so low power, this would do the trick. Also it would make them easier to find as they would be larger. No more lost remotes!

[MarkR42]

I have a doorbell with a "kinetic wireless remote". It is basically a heavily weighted springloaded switch which hits a piezo crystal quite hard and generates enough charge into a capacitor (presumbaly + regulator circuit) to run the radio / microprocessor for the fraction of a second required to send the digital signal. Very clever stuff.

I have no idea how robust it would be long term, but ideal for a wet environment as there are no batteries to leak or corrode.

[Cyberdragon]

I have a doorbell with a "kinetic wireless remote". It is basically a heavily weighted springloaded switch which hits a piezo crystal quite hard and generates enough charge into a capacitor (presumbaly + regulator circuit) to run the radio / microprocessor for the fraction of a second required to send the digital signal. Very clever stuff.

I have no idea how robust it would be long term, but ideal for a wet environment as there are no batteries to leak or corrode.

Or the orginal TV remotes that used audio from plucking metal reeds.

[janoc]

I think this is completely unfounded. It is much more expensive even in the long term to use rechargeables than disposables.

Quick math:

8x AA Rechargeable + charger = £22.22 (£2.775 per cell)
100x AA Disposable = £21.99 (£0.21 per cell)

This means a rechargeable cell costs roughly 13 times more than a disposable.

In the most common use for AA batteries (remote controls), batteries last 1-2 years; to get your money's worth out of a rechargeable set you'd have to use the same set for about 20 years. There are no rechargeables with a lifetime of 20 years of continuous duty, even the TV's average life cycle is 7.5 years, the charger will probably break or get lost many times by then. And you also have to live with not using the TV remote for 8-12 hours because the batteries are charging, every few months, for 20 years.

You are trolling, right? Because you have picked exactly the one use case where rechargeable batteries are a poor choice because of poor self-discharge behavior and low current requirements.  And built your entire argument on that 

AA cells are used in tons of other things than clocks and TV remotes - many toys (e.g. Legos, Furbys, ...), some cheap cameras, wireless game controllers (e.g. Xbox, Oculus Quest, Wii ...), some home appliances use them (various mini vaccuum cleaners, electric potato peelers, etc.).

If you have kids and they have a game console that uses a game controller powered by AA cells, you will realize the advantage of having recheargeables on hand pretty quickly. E.g. my Quest goes through a set of batteries in the controllers every few days when I am using it regularly. And no, an integrated lithium battery wouldn't be better - AA cell you can swap and continue playing, with a non-replaceable battery you are SOL until it recharges, so Oculus (and Nintendo before them) knew exactly why they decided to use AAs instead.

[rdl]

I use rechargeables in all my remotes, mostly for leak damage avoidance. The batteries in the remote for my TV, which is almost 6 years old, have needed recharging once. I have a lab thermometer that uses a 9 volt battery and is always on. It will use up a standard battery in about a month. I switched it to 9 volt Li-Ion several years ago and that alone has probably saved me well over a hundred bucks.

[ace1903]

Alkaline batteries if made properly are actually better for the environment. Recently I saw on TV how these batteries are recycled into nutrients for the soil. Iron, carbon, KOH, zinc, MnO2 and other microelements are good for corn and other cultures. Some processing is needed but completely possible. I also recently searched to find a way how lithium-based batteries are recycled and there is no public thesis or other materials.
In alkaline batteries recycling the biggest problem is to identify mixed NiCd ones and to separate them(also Hg based but those are rare these days).