Give a second life to your dead batteries!

I’m sure you all have old and forgotten batteries somewhere in your house of which you don’t have a clue how to recycle them.  Once you have the brilliant idea to clean up your cupboards, the danger exists that you decide to just toss your dead batteries in the trash! This is very polluting for the environment as batteries are nasty metal containers filled with lead, cadmium, nickel, … .  

But this problem could be solved in the very near future, thanks to the Energy Seed Desk Lamp and it’s bigger variant the Energy Seed Street Lamp. These lamps make use of the energy of dead batteries. Your battery is maybe dead according to your remote control, but they are very much alive according to Energy Seed.

For the desk lamp, you simply insert your old batteries into convenient holes in the ‘seed’ base and the energy (left in the battery) is converted into an efficient LED light. The design of the innovation is just like a flower. You have to plant a seed (insert your dead battery) and then the flower blossoms (the light blossoms). It’s bigger variant, the Street Lamp works just the same way. When walking your dog out, you can bring old batteries with you and recycle them by putting them in the seed holes. The cylinder holes in the base accommodate all different sizes of batteries, so no battery is left behind. In addition to the Desk Lamp, the Street Lamp is able to contain the old batteries at the bottom of the lamp and can then be collected by someone who knows how to properly recycle the batteries so they won’t wind up in a landfill.

I suggest the city of Ghent to invest in some of the Energy Seed Street lamps. This way the city contributes to a greener environment as citizens will be encouraged to bring their old batteries with them when wandering around in the center. Instead of bringing bread and feeding the duck, you bring your old batteries and plant them to lighten the city.

Do you think it could be a good initiative for recycling batteries and making people aware that it’s not done to just throw your dead batteries in a trash can?

Liesbeth Rubben