1 eu = 100 3A alkaline dry batteries.

Not too long ago there was a time when batteries were used mainly in flashlights and toys, but today they seem to be used in all kinds of familiar things. Everyone's living room must have at least three remote controls, and watches, clocks and cameras all run on batteries. If we include recharging batteries, cassette decks, CD players, MDs, wireless phones, electronic notebooks and notebook computers all are on the increase. Here, we will discuss throwaway dry batteries.

Dry batteries are called "canned electricity", but they are not filled with electricity itself, but generate it through a chemical reaction. How much electricity you get from one depends greatly on how you use it, so the labels will not say how many watts per hour or how many calories they contain. In general, you get more work out of them if you use them a little at a time and only use a weak current. 3A(SUM-3) alkaline batteries give about three watts per hour. This is one hundredth of an eu. So little energy it is hardly worth counting in eus. (Though shaped the same, the manganese batteries at half the price give off less than half the electricity.)

The energy to produce one dry battery is one eu.

It can probably be said that thanks to dry batteries, we are freed of the restraints of electric wires and can save resources. However we can only use 0.9% of the energy required to manufacture dry batteries. It is best to use them as little as possible. On top of that we have the problems involved in throwing them away. Until a few years ago they used mercury in them and there was a real fear of environmental pollution. Today mercury is no longer used in them, but dry batteries are lumps of metal which should be recycled, such as manganese, zinc and nickel. Only a very few extra conscientious local governments collect them separately from other garbage. We probably need to start up a deposit system (selling them with the price of processing them afterwards added in at the beginning) and to push for a better nation-wide system of collecting harmful waste separately.

Reference:

For the contents of the batteries, we used as reference "Kaiteiban Denchi no Hon" (The Revised Book of Batteries) by Akiyoshi Nishimura, published by CQ Publishing Co., 1992, with its description of Maxell's product. Calculations were for sixteen hours use at a stretch at ten ohms of resistance for an average of 1.4 volts. (Figures may have improved since then.)

0.9%:

For the figure 0.9%, we used "Yugai Haikibutsu" (Harmful Waste Products) by Hiroshi Takatsuki and Shinichi Sakai, published by Chuo Hoki, 1993. Originally taken from "Gendai Kagaku" (Modern Chemistry), October 1991 article by Tokuharu Murata. The energy to produce the battery is taken as that needed to refine the metals in it and so forth and energy for processing, distributing and disposing of them is not included. Trial calculations were made at a time when mercury was still used.

Collection:

Dry batteries collected by local governments are sent to the Itomuka factory in Hokkaido where mercury and manganese are recycled. Rechargeable nickel and cadmium batteries must be recycled under the Recycling Act and the makers do collect them, but according to the August 20, 1998 Sankei Shimbun newspaper, less than 20% is recycled. In other words some 80% is thrown away somewhere and spreads their harmful cadmium. Wireless phones have almost entirely switched to using high quality lithium ion batteries, but when it comes to getting rid of them, people are told to throw them out as unburnable garbage (except for a few cases where people recycle themselves.) They tell people this knowing full well how combustible lithium is! The corporate efforts of the battery makers deserve praise for having reduced the mercury in dry batteries to zero and now for switching from nickel and cadmium batteries to nickel-hydrogen batteries and lithium ion batteries which do not contain cadmium. However, when we depend on the makers' efforts, developing new products becomes the focus and recycling is neglected. (To digress, even though they have succeeded in reducing the chlorofluorocarbon in new refrigerators to zero, little effort is expended on removing the chlorofluorocarbon from equipment already in use. These two cases seem to point up the strengths and weaknesses of our country's corporate governance.) Yet, when comparing dry batteries with rechargeable ones, it has been figured that dry batteries are twelve times more expensive to buy and maintain and 150 times more expensive to dispose of as waste (according to C&G Volume One, published by the Haikibutsu Gakkai (Academic Society on Waste). So using rechargeable batteries is a better choice for the environment.

Written by Shinji Yagi (Translation)