@mediocrebot Right on, Bot!

@mediocrebot @shahnm They definitely look chill.

@shahnm Looks like the little guy at the top right corner of the door is feeling low.

@macromeh Dammit - the bot left the door open too long, and that little guy lost his chill… He won’t stand a chance now. Destined to grow up to be a Duracell… shudder

@macromeh @shahnm Maybe he is just constipated with too much power.

@macromeh @yakkoTDI Guess he might feel better after a little discharge…

@haydesigner So it has been reported.

@AaronLeeJohnson That’s kind of missing the point, really. It’s not to get something more out of it, but to give back to the planet. I for one like and support this idea (provided the batteries are any good) but most probably won’t/didn’t, likely due to the necessarily higher cost…which is probably why they’re here on Meh.

@PooltoyWolf there’s no way using petrol vehicles like UPS to ‘ship’ batteries back to the company is good for the planet. Probably another failed startup, which is why they’re on meh

@caffeineguy @PooltoyWolf the mail truck is already going to be on the road(unless the company is in the middle of the desert). the other option is to make a separate trip in a car to drop the batteries off at the annual town hazardous waste recycle dropoff or to the battery recycle dropoff at a store/dump. not buying it due to the amazon reviews other people mentioned but shipping/mail is generally fuel efficient.

@caffeineguy @PooltoyWolf @russellmz
I have to wonder at what point the idea that the “truck is already going to be there” falls apart? Yes their might be a truck going there, but that only reallly works if they have really good storage and logistic process to make sure that they never use another truck. Eventually if you ship enough stuff, you are going to need another truck to move the stuff.

@caffeineguy Politely, do you know of a better solution? Most companies don’t even try.

This business model is sound; it’s been in use by printer ink conpanies for decades. It’s not perfect but it’s better than doing nothing at all and letting it be landfilled.

EDIT: Why is ‘ship’ in quotes? Also, the pedant in me wants to mention that we call it gasoline in the US, are you from outside the US?

@PooltoyWolf I’m really not sure why I scare-quoted ‘ship’ in that context, LOL!? Maybe just to emphasize there’s a bunch of additional environmental impact things that happen once a package leaves one’s mailbox.
Printer/Ink companies are far from doing what’s best for the world/environment. The business model of printer companies is to remove potential refillable toner and ink cartridges from the world, and the adding DRM chips to add insult to injury ; If they really cared, they’d sell refillable cartridges.
As to petrol, I’m in the US; but the only internal combustion car I still drive is a diesel (as are the shipping trucks/trains), so I usually say ‘fuel’ anyway and because ‘gas’ is not a gas. Also, on the internet, where a bunch of car forums are multinational, I’ve reprogrammed myself to refer to gasoline as petrol (and windscreen), though I realize on meh most everyone is likely in the US.

@caffeineguy I realize I should probably clarify: by ‘business model’, I meant the idea of giving customers a prepaid package to send empty/used product back to the company for recycling. Otherwise, some of them (HP in particular) are pretty sleazy.

The official EPA guidance on alkaline and carbon-zinc household battery disposal is this:

Some reclamation companies recycle these batteries; check with your local or state solid waste authority for management options. In most communities, alkaline and zinc carbon batteries can be safely put in your household trash.

EPA recommendation: send used alkaline and zinc carbon batteries to battery recyclers or check with your local or state solid waste authority.

From what I could discover, it is unusual for any local regulation to require separate disposal for these batteries, and the number of companies processing used ones seems to have dropped, not increased. This tells me that both the economic and environmental impacts of that don’t make a lot of sense. Prior to the elimination of mercury from alkaline batteries, recycling or at least safely disposing of them was pretty much of a necessity. But none that include mercury have been made since 1994.

@highonpez Un/luckily there’s no D cells then.

@highonpez @mcanavino The company does manufacture and sell C and D size batteries, but Meh hasn’t got their paws on any…yet.

Think i’ve had some of their sprouts.

@joeywolf from the write-up:

But they do make it easy by providing a paid mailer

so looks like the battery company pays.

@joeywolf you do, when you buy them. It’s built into the purchase price.

It’s sort of like a rebate. You pay up front and it’s up to you to mail it in (or not).

@mehric Read the Amazon reviews especially for the lower “1” not the Vine higher rated. So apparently “yes.” I need AAAs but pass for moi.

@TheStas Only because someone ain’t doing their job right. Which is most people.

@TheStas That was my immediate thought. Where is the accountability? I’ve seen so many documentaries at this point about ‘green’ companies just dumping stuff into landfills instead of doing the recycling they say they are doing.

@Konraden @TheStas yeah but the whole idea is to make customers feel better and virtuous. So if we don’t set our expectations too high, it’s all good. Right? ;⁠-⁠)

@TheStas yeah, my county requires all alkaline batteries to be brought to the household hazardous waste recycling ; but I suspect that’s only because of the number of garbage fires they have. They probably put them all in an incinerator anyway, just better to incinerate them under control rather than in a contractor’s trash truck.

@caffeineguy cook county illinois requires you to have a license to carry a gun. Ask Chicago how that’s going

@TheStas Indiana effectively doesn’t require you to have ID to buy a gun from a “private seller” at a gun show. Technically, even a private seller is supposed to verify that a buyer is of legal age and an Indiana resident, but I could not find an enforceable State reg that would penalize a seller for not checking.
Cook County can’t do anything about that.

@andymand I would assume that they give you a prepaid label but that the organizer is also the return shipping container.

@andymand There’s dozens of fancy battery organizers that can be 3D printed for pennies

@theonlybuster the idea is to fool people into buying their batteries with a clever marketing strategy. If you want to actually do something good spend a few bucks more and buy rechargeable batteries

@theonlybuster what do you think they are going to do if you send a bunch of old Duracell batteries back? Call the battery police?

@theonlybuster @TheStas Some of y’all are really pessimistic. As to rechargeables, there are devices that don’t like the lower 1.2 volts per cell that all widely available rechargeable batteries provide, especially in higher cell counts. Eight alkaline cells is 12 volts; eight rechargeables is only 9.6 volts.

@PooltoyWolf @theonlybuster they come in many flavors. I’ve seen them as high as 1.6V. Ignorance is an argument, I guess.
Amazon

@theonlybuster @TheStas Find me a decent quality set of NiMH or comparable chemistry rechargeable batteries that are comparable cost to alkalines and 1.5 volts (not higher, that’s potentially damaging) and I may reconsider, but your attitude towards my statement doesn’t exactly engender friendly debate.

EDIT: The ones in the Amazon link you shared aren’t even rechargeable…

@PooltoyWolf @theonlybuster wrong link
Amazon

There’s literally tons if you just do a damned web search. They’re not 4-leaf clovers, they’re literally everywhere. This isn’t a debate, I’m not here to wipe your tears

@theonlybuster @TheStas Good grief, take a chill pill or something The batteries in the corrected link are nearly three times the price of the same quantity of standard NiMH rechargeables, so no, not comparable per my initial statement. I’m gonna step away because I don’t as a rule enjoy volatility in conversations

@PooltoyWolf @theonlybuster any rechargeable is better than single use recyclable. Do your own web search weirdo. I’d block you if that was an option

@theonlybuster @TheStas I’d ‘negative star’ your comments if that were an option because holy crap you’re insufferable

@visioneer_one A lot of that corrosion is likely due to galvanic corrosion between different metals nickel, steel, tin, etc.

@caffeineguy @visioneer_one As alkaline batteries discharge, they generate internal pressure which has no way to escape safely. Even if they are only slightly discharged, this can lead to failure of the sealing of the cell, with leakage of the potassium hydroxide electrolyte. That electrolyte immediately reacts with air to form the less-reactive but tough AF crusty crap that can turn the interior of a flashlight into a solid mass that can only be excavated using power tools. (See https://werehatrack.blogspot.com/ for a TL;DR of the issue.) And “less reactive” is not the same thing as “inert”; it’s still able to attack metals and cause damage, particularly when it isn’t discovered for weeks, months, or years. Bottom line: Old alkaline batteries are a hazard to whatever they’re in, and alkaline batteries that have been discharged at all are likely to leak at some point. (The old Rayovac cells were pretty much the worst, and Duracell was close behind, Slightly different cause, same result.)

@visioneer_one @werehatrack I’m not saying leaking batteries don’t exist, only that some devices corrode with good batteries because cheap battery powered things often have the cheapest metals/materials available;

@werehatrack that was an educational read, mostly because it is applicable to a personal situation.

(I had a nostalgic childhood penlight I lost when I repurposed my old room as a home office. Two years ago, it resurfaced in the back of my desk. There must have been an AAA inside all those decades ago and it had leaked so much it fused with the bottom of the drawer. I pried it out, along with a layer of timber, sanded the wood off and was confused about what to do with the light. After reading your blog, I’m going to have to give it last rites and throw it at the nearest Best Buy battery disposal.)

@caffeineguy @visioneer_one Battery compartment fragility is a real thing, and doesn’t need batteries to be a problem. I’ve seen way too many devices whose springs were so poorly plated that they’d started to corrode under the chrome or nickel before they reached me (though you’d have needed a magnifying glass to see it), and I’d noted that their wiring often seemed rather failure-prone as well. Recently, I found out that a lot of “copper” wire from China is actually copper-electroplated iron, which has higher electrical resistance and lower corrosion resistance than all-copper would. And when you have copper-plated iron wire soldered (or, worse, crimped) to a nickel-plated brass wafer contact that has a nickel-plated steel spring crimped onto it, the potential for things to not play well together (or just fail due to crap construction) goes way up. Dissimilar-metals issues can be minimized with the right prep and coatings, but doing that would be against the core of chabuduo, the guiding precept behind Chinese “quality control”.

@pakopako I’d most likely have done the same. In fact, I’ve tossed two or three of the two-AA Maglites because of that, and I don’t keep batteries in any of the survivors because they produce so little light that they’re more of an art object than a useful implement now.

@werehatrack It might be worth looking into whether there is an LED conversion kit for them, if they have sentimental/nostalgic value. I’ve done that with several of the 3 and 4 (and a 5 cell, I think) “D” cell Maglites, which made them actually usable. I also got some of those little carriers that “convert” smaller batteries (in parallel) to D size to put in them. I’d bet there is a kit for the dual “A” version too.

@Doooood I’ve checked, and there is. The kits cost more than a decent 18650-powered 300-1000 lumen no-name Chinese flashlight, and the conversion kits typically have a light output well under 100 lumens. That’s kind of a dead-loss situation. Part of the reason I haven’t tossed them is that every once in a while, I pull one out and put some batteries in it to show people what was considered to be a good small flashlight back in the pre-LED days.

@heartbleed I’d be tempted to keep the case long after the batteries were used up and gone.

@caffeineguy The accounting and regulatory gymnastics to justify that “carbon-neutral” claim must either be impressive in themselves, or riddled with bogosity, if not both.

@werehatrack They’re probably all natural and have no artificial colors or flavorings too

@caffeineguy @werehatrack And no doubt only a very few animals are harmed in their production/disposal.

@caffeineguy @macromeh @werehatrack But are these gluten free?

@caffeineguy @macromeh @narfcake @werehatrack they’re not even cage free

@caffeineguy @macromeh @narfcake @ybmuG And they aren’t saying anything about whether they’re dolphin-safe, either.

@caffeineguy @macromeh @werehatrack @ybmuG Things are different in the 31st century:

@Billlh It’s entirely possible that the jan2026 marking is a sell-by that’s unrelated to their forecast shelf life. However, I’ve been burned by alkaline battery unreliability more than once over the years, so I’m glad that I currently have plenty of AA, AAA and 9V cells on hand. (I’ve changed over to Tenergy NiMH rechargeables for the few C- and D-cell devices I still use.)

@uvassassin It worked! Your order number is: distressed-odious-cloud

/showme distressed odious cloud

@blaineg If you mean single-cycle precharged, OK, I guess you could say that. Sort of. (Rechargeable alkaline batteries existed for a while, but I don’t think anyone still makes them. They were pretty pitiful.)

@werehatrack Rechargable alkalines were neat-- “Renewal” and then there was “Pure Energy”. They were useful in low-drain devices like remotes, and did OK if they weren’t deep discharged. But I think they leaked and made a mess too!

seems to confirm much of my memory of these things… There’s a “pure energy” charger around here somewhere, undoubtedly from meh (or the last hurrah) when pure energy was on the back 9 of their lifecycle.

@caffeineguy @werehatrack I always remembered the trick was in the charger and not the battery.
Turns out it’s a bit of both (though you could recharge a spent alkaline a few times)
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_alkaline_battery