DavidWolfe.comRaise your hand if you’ve got a drawer in your house that’s filled with batteries.
Keep your hand raised if you have no idea which of those batteries are good and which ones are bad.
Yeah, I’m with you on that.
Most of us are aware that used batteries should not be just tossed into the trash and so we collect ’em. While that’s good for the environment (more on that later), it’s not good when you’re actually looking for a fresh pair.
Unless you’re a techie with a meter, you can easily spend 20 minutes going through your little collection trying to find batteries for essential items like your flashlight.
Unless you know this simple trick.
How To Test Batteries With The Bounce Method
This works for AA, AAA, C, D and 9 volt alkaline batteries.
All you’ve gotta do is take a battery, raise it a few centimeters above a flat surface and let go.
A dead battery will bounce several times and fall over while a good one will drop and fall over without bouncing at all.
Seriously, there’s actual science behind this.
According to electrical engineer Lee Hite, as a battery becomes discharged the manganese dioxide powder in it changes to manganese oxide. This causes a reaction with the other chemicals in a battery, making it lighter and more ‘bouncy.’
You can see this demonstrated in the video below.
How To Dispose of Batteries Properly
As I touched on briefly before, batteries are terrible for the environment. That said, we can’t really avoid using them. They come in handy for things like emergency flashlights, radios, watches and more.
But we can reduce the environmental impact of batteries by disposing them properly.
This handy dandy locator will help you find a battery recycling facility near you if you live in the U.S. or Canada. Recycled batteries get turned into new ones instead of winding up in a landfill.
You can support this initiative by purchasing recycled batteries.
Sources:
Lee Hite
Lifehacker
Call2Recycle.ca