Carbon-neutral, Nontoxic Options in Batteries

You see them everywhere — on sidewalks, in gutters, piled near bus stops. No, not cigarette butts. I mean used-up batteries that run all manner of consumer electronics. They seem to end up everywhere but where dead alkaline batteries are supposed to be, which is with municipal waste.

Battery manufacturers claim that they are making efforts to make nontoxic batteries. Duracell, for example, says on its Web site that it has "voluntarily eliminated all of the added mercury from its alkaline batteries since 1993" and that its products "do not pose a health or environmental risk during normal use or disposal."

But what about lead, cadmium and the energy that went into making the batteries?

A battery maker is producing products "free of mercury, cadmium and lead" and which are "certified carbon neutral by carbonfund.org," according to Jude Garvey's article in gizmag.com. "The Eco Alkaline batteries were certified carbon neutral after a detailed product life-cycle assessment of carbon emissions."

Venom is the oddly named company making Eco Alkaline batteries, and Garvey said that "as part of a carbon neutral project, Venom is supporting the Return to Forest Project which is helping to reforest Nicaragua's Pacific coast."

According to an article on carbonfund.org, Venom's investment "also brings economic opportunities to local [Nicaraguan] communities while sequestering about 170,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."