Fwd: Ideal Bite: How to Recycle Pink Fur

May 2, 2009

Ideal Bite <daily

cyndikrall

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 3:23 am

Ideal Bite: How to Recycle Pink Fur

April 27, 2009

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BATTERY RECYCLING

How to Recycle Pink Fur

If 10,000 Biters recycle all their batteries, every year we'll keep the weight of seven elephants in waste from entering landfills and save about $147,000.

What happens when the Energizer Bunny actually does die? Hop into recycling mode. Whether rechargeable or alkaline (yep â€“ both kinds are recyclable), getting rid of your batteries in an eco-friendlier way is as easy as banging a drum.

It's good fur the planet. We Americans buy 3 billion batteries per year; recycling prevents battery toxins from leaching into soil, waterways, and the air.

Resources that keep goingâ€¦and goingâ€¦ From lithium to lead, battery companies can recover the chemicals and reuse 'em (60% of the world's lead supply comes from recycled car batteries alone).

Drop spots are as ubiquitous as that pink you-know-what. Just drop off old ones at a participating retail store when you're picking up new ones.

Here in SF, we usually drop ours off at Radio Shack or Walgreens (which takes them through Call2Recycle).

Earth 911 - find out where to recycle alkalines; just type in your zip and it'll spit out a list of nearby drop spots.

Call2Recycle - ditto on the above, but for rechargeables.

Big Green Box - service that will send you a box that you ship back for recycling (postage paid) when full; great for offices ($58).

But 'member: Alkalines are like incandescent=2

0light bulbs - a waste of cash and energy - so switch to rechargeables (which last for up to 1,000 charges) if you haven't already.

Green Batteries - carries (almost) every rechargeable battery under the sun.

Duracell Value Charger - rechargeables starter kit; comes with 4 precharged AAs. Duracell beat Energizer in a recent test ($17).

Note: Rechargeables lose their juice faster than nonrechargeable alkalines, so you prolly wanna stick with conventional batteries in your smoke alarms.