Throw away battries add toxic debris to our landfills, and a UK company may have an answer to the problem with a new battery that can be recharged in the USB ports of computers without any additional charging mechanism.
Recycling Week began badly yesterday with news that Britain faces millions of pounds of fines for not collecting and recycling batteries. However, London based renewable power specialist Moixa Energy has the answer – with their award winning USBCELL battery category, which is already saving millions of batteries from future UK Landfill.
“Consumers need re-usable products, not just rubbish after one use alkaline batteries”, says Moixa CEO and founder Simon Daniel. “Our USBCELL Batteries can be ‘Recharged Anywhere’ by simply plugging them into one of the billions of USB ports on desktops, laptop or games device”
“The solution is not just consumers recycling more (how many people even know about Recycling Week), it is the responsibility of all companies and designers to rethink entire product categories to become more re-usable and sustainable, as the recent Di Caprio Eleventh Hour film points out”.
Batteries are a clear example of waste, with over 15 billion (equivalent to a column to the moon and back), made and thrown away each year, wasting C02, resources and toxic landfill. Traditional rechargeable batteries require a charger/adaptor to be made, found and carried – so sadly are on average only ever re-used under 10 times before being discarded.
USBCELL batteries solve this by embedding a compact USB connector and circuitry inside the battery so that no separate charger is needed. Each USBCELL can save over 3kg of landfill and 7kg of C02, in basic re-use, and significantly more if fully re-used. Whilst government departments, BBMA (British Battery Manufacturers Association) and environmental groups debate how to raise UK collection from the current 2-3% to the 25% required under the EU Batteries Directive, USBCELL has already saved the UK several jumbo jets worth of future landfill.
CEO Simon Daniel comments, “We live in a Harry Potter and iPod economy, where good ideas can sell hundreds of millions of units, and consumers are hungry for better environmental products. Our goal is to help the UK exceed its target and reduce battery landfill by more than 25%, through our re-usable USBCELL batteries, that could even become lifetime batteries so that you never need to buy another battery again. We also offer a free recycling service due to the value of Nickel that is recoverable in our batteries. We also believe the EU will likely need to increase taxes on Alkaline batteries in the future to cover recycling and environmental cost, and help migrate customers to rechargeables which are the fastest growing battery category and already account for over 30% of revenue in some stores”
For more information visit www.usbcell.com