Single Use Alkaline Batteries are an Environmental disaster, We can do better
It’s no secret that we live in a consumer-driven technological age. Every year millions of products are produced that depend on electricity, and more specifically Batteries. Eventually, most batteries end up in a landfill somewhere and run the risk of polluting the nearby land, and water systems. This isn’t a new problem, but it’s getting worse as more and more devices have batteries.
Batteries aren’t a new technology, they have been around for thousands of years, there are reports that ancient cultures like the Egyptians used batteries to electroplate jewelry. And through the years we have generally had two — to— three different types of batteries: Disposable/ Renewable and Rechargeable. With disposable and renewable batteries, the chemistry that produces electricity only happens once. After that, the ability to recharge the battery becomes too difficult, and you need to dispose of a lot of chemical waste. Some might say that renewable batteries like Car Batteries can be serviced and put back into service, but the fact remains that a lot of chemical waste needs to be disposed of after each renewal cycle.
Rechargeable batteries are a clear winner here, as each rechargeable battery can be reused hundreds or thousands of times. Scientists are still working on the holy grail of batteries that can be recharged forever, but even before we get there, each rechargeable battery put into use can save hundreds of alkaline batteries from landfills.
So, then, why don’t all products use rechargeable batteries?
The short uninteresting answer is that most consumer disposable batteries operate at a higher voltage than rechargeable batteries. So, devices that tend towards cheaper, simpler, lighter designs choose to use fewer batteries to deliver the same voltage that rechargeable batteries do.
As a parent, I became ever more aware of this problem. Where many adult devices might have advanced lithium-ion or lithium-ion polymer batteries and charge via USB; by contrast, however, many kids and baby toys only take alkaline batteries. These devices simply won’t work on fully charged rechargeable batteries. These devices are sold with razor-thin margins, so I think that is leading toy and device makers down this path. Alkaline batteries are much cheaper to make.
If market economics won’t solve this problem, then the better question is why don’t we require all devices to at least function on rechargeable batteries? It’s a simple legislative change that could drastically cut down on battery waste.
As someone with a degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering, here are the questions we should be asking:
- Why aren’t rechargeable batteries made to support higher voltages?
- Why don’t devices just add an extra space to support current rechargeable battery technology?
- Why can’t devices use circuits that just increase the voltage?
- If devices worked at the voltages that rechargeable batteries provide, wouldn’t Alkaline batteries last even longer in those devices?
Why don’t rechargeable batteries support higher voltages?
I don’t have a specific answer from history, but logically as an engineer, I’m going to make an educated guess. Since rechargeable batteries tend to hold their voltages longer, and the standard was developed decades ago, I bet a smart engineer saw that it was possible to make the first commercial rechargeable battery system possible by targeting 80% of the voltage, and still having 50% or better of the runtime capacity in a set of devices. The engineers might have even thought that say a flashlight running on alkaline batteries might only have that peak brightness for a short time, but rechargeable batteries could still compete because most of their life they would have better than average brightness when compared to the alkaline that would eventually be dimmer than the rechargeable battery cells.
Today, I deeply question if this is still true. I really wonder if we could design a AAA or AA battery that has the full 1.5v that an alkaline battery does. I’m not sure what we would give up, but I bet it’s possible. If not today, then someday.
Why don’t devices just add an extra space to support current rechargeable battery technology?
It’s probably as simple as, Engineers might be taking this shortcut to save money, on products that have razor-thin margins. By using alkaline batteries, instead of 5 batteries, the devices maybe could work on 4. This saves on providing one extra battery in its product list, one extra battery in weight, and the device has one less battery’s worth of support hardware and electronics. Of these extra expenses, I’d bet the extra included battery is the most expensive, and it probably accomplishes a marketing objective to have the toy say “batteries included” increasing the perceived value, or so that the toy/ product can demo in the store.
As a compromise or starting place, we can just require that the device accept rechargeable batteries. That way the engineers could for example either design the device to work with 4 or 5 batteries, or could provide the device with 5 alkaline batteries, and then it would work with 5 rechargeable when the consumer replaces them at home.
Most consumer devices could be easily designed to accommodate a little bit of extra voltage. Voltage regulators are cheap and can be used to clip small amounts of voltage.
These changes might increase the cost of the product by a few cents, but they shouldn’t make any product exist in a new price category. Also, since these small turn-and-burn device companies don’t have the leverage to define a market for products that accept rechargeable batteries, legislation could ease us into that market.
Why can’t devices use circuits that just increase the voltage?
Another engineering trick that could be employed would require a slightly more complex circuit, but there are ways to “double” or increase the voltage coming off of the batteries. I’m not going to bore you with the details, but it can either be done in integrated circuits or with a few analog components that might require coils of wires. I haven’t designed enough consumer devices to know if this is cheaper or more expensive than adding another battery, but I know it’s possible. Device engineers would have to decide which approach to use. Heck, it might be possible for a battery to miniaturize this technique to increase the voltage of the rechargeable batteries themselves from 1.2 -1.5v.
If devices worked at the voltages that rechargeable batteries provide, wouldn’t Alkaline batteries last even longer in those devices?
Here’s the best part, if engineers designed products for lower voltage rechargeable batteries, then the higher voltage alkaline batteries would last longer too in those devices. Since we know these devices don’t work at 1.2v, we know that only a small percentage of the alkaline battery capacity operates above 1.2v, so these devices are wasting a lot of capacity as it is now with Alkaline batteries. These batteries if fully utilized could provide current well below 0.9v, down to 0.7v, or even as low as 0.6v. So devices designed to support lower battery voltages and over a broader range of voltages would extend the life of Alkaline and potentially Rechargeable batteries too.
Summary
According to Wikipedia, Alkaline batteries make up 80% of the manufactured batteries in the US with over 10 billion units produced annually worldwide. That’s a lot of chemicals ending up in landfills that don’t need to be there. If we designed better devices, we could not only extend the life of alkaline batteries by maybe 25–100%, cutting their potential waste in half, but we could also support modern rechargeable batteries that might last hundreds or thousands of charging cycles. Reducing battery waste by well over 99%.
Also, with rechargeable batteries, there is a growing market to reuse the battery cells in lower-grade scenarios for solar and grid storage as well. By requiring devices to support rechargeable batteries we can help save this planet by reducing, reusing, and recycling our energy storage needs. Please write your local representatives, whether you are in the US, Europe, Japan, or anywhere globally. Together we can make one small step together to save our planet.
Change.org Petition to Require devices to work with Rechargeable Batteries
