Kit Tip: Why your collection of dead alkaline batteries aren’t really dead

Modern life runs on energy, and we are getting more and more accustomed to using energy so that we tend to forget that this energy is limited and one day we could face scarcity of energy. One must always be prepared to either consider renewable energy sources to keep their appliances running or learn to make energy efficiently.

Producing energy is a complicated endeavour, however, there are a few things that one could adopt in order to stay ‘energized’ during hard times.

Most of us have a habit of possessing a fair number of electric appliances and need not to say that all these gizmos require a number of energy sources. And the best widely used energy source that really took the whole world by storm are the alkaline batteries, though a bit left behind in the race these days, but still very much relevant.

Every household has a box or a bucket full of old used alkaline batteries that lie there doing nothing but slowly decaying and dying due to neglect.

If you happen to have one of those stockpiles of alkaline batteries, we have a suggestion for you which can serve you both as an amazing activity on a day off and in the case of power outage or god forbid some other extreme situation can save your life with enough energy.

For this, you may require a battery tester that you can easily grab from any surplus electric store in your area. The chances are that you are going to have a whole collection of various types of batteries including the old 9Vs and the most famous of all the AAs and AAAs.

The procedure starts with a simple sorting out of the bad ones from the decent ones; meaning that first of all get rid of all the wasted ones which are spilling out the goo from their sides, these are most certainly dead batteries; say your prayers and throw them away. Then look for the less damaged and closely analyse, if they have rust eating the side panels then say goodbye to them as well, since these batteries are essentially on their last breaths. Now come the ones which are surprisingly healthy and start checking them all.

You will find a fair number of these batteries will be fully charged, Why? Well simply because of our affluence and negligence. Whenever we have an appliance which requires more than one battery to run and serve us, and they stop working due to lack of energy, we assume that all the batteries have used up their life, when in reality its either one or two at most that have exhausted.

We arrogantly throw them all in the waste bin or collection bucket without even taking some time out and checking them first. Therefore a few minutes of checking your old batteries would reveal a fair number of them turning out to be in perfect form and completely useable.