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Batteries require special effort to recycle, also a chore to replace them every now and then. It just generates waste for no reason. I know my contribution is

Batteries require special effort to recycle, also a chore to replace them every now and then. It just generates waste for no reason. I know my contribution is negligible, but I still feel better not buying things that work on batteries, when possible. Quite frustratingly, this turns out to be quite hard / very limited in choice of design options. Here are some things that appeared quite hard to find w/o batteries: * Alarm clock. * Cooking thermometer. * Cooking scales. Eventually, I did find those, but I had to hunt them down, weeding through countless alternatives with batteries. Things like angle grinder and impact driver also gave me some headache. Oh, and there's also pulseox and sphygmomanometer. You can sort of see how a version that works on batteries would be useful... but for a lot of people there's no need for the battery-powered version. But those become increasingly hard to find.

PopAlongKid 3y ago
>* Alarm clock. Are you talking about a device that is powered by the wall outlet but has a backup battery that is only used to preserve the time setting in case of a power outage?
- crabbone 3y ago
  Nah. I wanted a mechanical one. The one you have to wind by hand. But, yeah, you reminded me of another thing I forgot to mention: the "hybrids". Devices that can be plugged into the wall and also use battery. A lot of these work by using the battery all the time and charging it while plugged. Which obviously significantly reduces battery life. My work laptop is like that (some Dell Experion model). After two years I had to throw the battery away (and now only use it when plugged into the wall). A bunch of cell phones are like that too. Bet there's more of that.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
For disposable batteries (AA, AAA, etc) I use rechargeable non-Lithium batteries and they’ve lasted over a full decade. Found some that I had lost years ago; recharged them back to full and they worked fine. Can’t say whether they lost any capacity yet, but it’s nice to know I can reduce so much waste without limiting my purchasing as much.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

>* Alarm clock. Are you talking about a device that is powered by the wall outlet but has a backup battery that is only used to preserve the time setting in case of a power outage?

crabbone 3y ago
Nah. I wanted a mechanical one. The one you have to wind by hand. But, yeah, you reminded me of another thing I forgot to mention: the "hybrids". Devices that can be plugged into the wall and also use battery. A lot of these work by using the battery all the time and charging it while plugged. Which obviously significantly reduces battery life. My work laptop is like that (some Dell Experion model). After two years I had to throw the battery away (and now only use it when plugged into the wall). A bunch of cell phones are like that too. Bet there's more of that.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago

For disposable batteries (AA, AAA, etc) I use rechargeable non-Lithium batteries and they’ve lasted over a full decade. Found some that I had lost years ago; recharged them back to full and they worked fine. Can’t say whether they lost any capacity yet, but it’s nice to know I can reduce so much waste without limiting my purchasing as much.