General Chat

Bob, I charged 4 AA batteries yesterday and it took 7 hours so they may have been charged already but obviously been sitting in a shop or warehouse for awhile.

I shall still keep my cheapy batteries for spares though, always have a plan B lol

Florence in the hebrides

The longer you use the rechargeables the more efficient they become. you will only pay the cost of charging, 14 hours is from completely flat...if you need to , have some spare batts already charged,,,

Well,guess what father bought for me this xmas??

Yes a recharging unit for batteries plus 8 AA & 8 AAA batteries. So I asked how long for 4 AA to charge and he said "about 14 hours!!"

I do wonder how much it will cost to charge the batteries?

Florence in the hebrides

thing about batteries is.....


alkalines have a nominal voltage around 1-5 volts per cell when new


rechargeables are 1-2 volts per cell, fully charged around 1-4 volts per cell

single cells in clocks etc doesn't really make any difference, but when multiple cells are used....as in torches...

4 alkalines make 6v.....

but you need 5 rechargeables to make a full 6 volts.

i use 9volt rechargeables in my smoke alarms...

Gwyn. We didn’t know about the strip lights until my OH posed the question when he bought a new one.

When he took in the used one he was told it didn’t look like it had actually gone - so he bought it home.

I,ve been saving up the foil packs but unless we have thelongbus turn round trip we won’t have time to drop them off. The choice is about 40 minutes or over 2 hours.

I save my foil packs too as out local chemist have an agreement with superdrug.

Foil packs are the one thing I can't recycle and we have lots of them. None of our local chemists will take them, not even the branch of Superdrug. :-(

Handy being able to drop lights at your ironmongers, Names.

Locally, Age UK Centre and the library also have collection points for batteries.

I also save the empty foil bubble packs from prescription or over the counter pills.
When I have a small collection, I drop them off at the collecting box in Superdrug in a local town.

I thought it more likely that someone would be going into Stornaway than going to the tip :-D

We save ours up and either drop them in a shop collection point, either the local ironmongers or a supermarket. Our ironmongers will take in used strip lights as well.

Ty names, its been awhile since i have been to town, last year i think!

I googled battery recycling in Stornaway and the Coop, Tescos, Boots, Superdrug and a lighting company are all part of the recycling scheme.

OH likes packs of muesli, so every time we have an empty one it is used to put all other thin plastic in (anything too thin for the normal recycling bin) and I take it to the supermarket each week. I don't know about Tesco, but both the Coop and Morrisons have containers to put it in.

I didn't know that about the thin plastic, Andysmum.

I always recycle plastic bags (bread bags, frozen veg bags, etc) at supermarkets, but I didn't know film was accepted too. Very useful to know!

Tesco, Morrisons and the Coop all do here, and, like ArgyllGran, we are in Scotland. I didn't know it was a legal requirement, but the Coop has been doing it for years. They also recycle thin plastic, like the tops on packs of grapes and crisp packets.

If you sell batteries then, by law, you have to provide a recycling option ( don’t know about Scotland).

In England we are being reminded not to put ANYTHING with a battery in the general waste they can cause fires.

Aldi, Tesco, Morrisons all do in my area.
Probably Lidl and the Co-op do too, but I can't remember.

Oh do they Andysmum, I never knew that?

Several supermarkets have containers where you can leave batteries and they dispose of them for you.

Thankyou for all your comments.
I use both AA & AAA batteries and I really do think I have the best deal.
I suppose from a recycling point of view, recharging means less end up in landfill perhaps.

Florence in the hebrides

I think as AnnG says not every item will accept a rechargeable battery...you would think that a battery is a battery whether rechargeable or not but that isn't the case, so you need to keep that in mind too when making your decision :-)