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Moixa’s USB AA rechargeable batteries 08.10.07
Moixa’s USB AA rechargeable batteries
Nigel’s Eco-Store thoughtfully sent Naturalchoices a couple of the Moixa’s USB AA rechargeable batteries. “More junk to rattle around the bottom of the your sack” quipped one wag in the office, two weeks later I couldn’t live without them writes Peter Shield.
Being a journalist I wander round with a rucksack full of gismos- a mobile phone, laptop, digital camera and digital voice recorder, as well as notebooks, pens and assorted bits of scruffy paper, brochures and a layer of bottom sediment safer not to disturb.
With a hectic schedule, and regular trips to the UK, Spain and the Benelux, something always gets forgotten- too often it is the recharger. So I arrive at an interview I have had a nightmare arranging only to find that the camera- or even worse the digital recorder- is flashing its ugly red light seconds before it going belly up. My Arabic like shorthand, unreadable seconds after the ink has dried, is a painful and sometime embarrassing fallback. Well you did say “We are not seeking Vegan Society accreditation”, “No what I said was we pride ourselves on our Vegan Society credentials”- woops.
The Moixa USB AA rechargeable batteries have been a life saver, they plug straight into the USB ports of the laptop- or any computer for that matter and a quick half hour boost on the train will get me through an interview or push enough power through the camera for a portrait. In an emergency they can pull power from the laptop’s battery, usually however I just plug them in when writing up the days stories and they are ready after 5 hours of charging to carry me through the next few days. No longer do I have to sift through the bottom sediment trying to find some old batteries that have, hopefully, enough juice to see me through the next 30 minutes.
Despite all the IT gurus, and marketing campaigns talk about convergence and single device technology the reality is that we use a wide range of electronic devices, from Tomtoms and mobile phones to wireless keyboards and Playstations. Some, like mobile phones have in built rechargeable batteries, many do not. Even those with rechargeable inevitably need their own specific re-chargers- I love the American expression, ‘wall warts’. These re-chargers are very rarely used correctly, either left permanently in the plug and draining power, or phones and other devices are left in far too long eating away at power. The rest rely on alkaline batteries.
“With over 15 billion batteries needlessly thrown away each year, and with the increasing demand for portable power by modern electronic devices. The battery has simply not caught up with the needs of modern life.”, says Moixa, ”Traditional rechargeable batteries have never been truly portable as they are dependent on chargers or adaptors, and so most consumers prefer single use alkaline cells.” Moixa Energy’s CEO - Simon Daniel says “Europe’s CO2 emissions are not just the 14% allocated domestically, but perhaps double this if we consider the global impact of our product consumption of products/foods manufactured overseas and imported. It is up to companies and product designers to deliver better products that meet the demands of a growing consumer revolution”
“It is simply nonsensical for the world to produce and throw away the equivalent of a column of batteries to the moon and back every year. Add to this the 10 billion mostly inefficient AC/DC converters which power modern home and portable devices, often thrown away in a year, and you have a totally unsustainable and poorly designed approach to modern life. We’re working on designs and products to reduce this – by better leveraging renewable solar/wind sources that are great for such DC applications, but have poor performance for high power AC.”
According to letsrecycle.com we recycle more than 90% of our lead acid batteries — those used in vehicles — just 4% of the non-lead acid waste batteries produced each year in the UK are recycled. This means that of about 25,000 tonnes of waste household and industrial batteries generated in the UK each year, just 1,000 tonnes is recycled.
The majority of alkaline batteries end up in landfill sites, slowly leaching their chemicals into the surrounding area.
Rechargables are a great first step in helping cut down on this needless waste, the USB rechargeable batteries , by not needing a recharger are even better.
Related links
Click here to buy The Moixa USB AA rechargeable batteries online from Nigel’s Eco-Store
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