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*Green Batteries*

Rechargeable NiMH (nickel - metal hydride) batteries are extremely earth-friendly products. You should really consider replacing most of your battery needs with NiMH batteries.

NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) batteries are rechargeable and do not suffer from "memory effect" unlike NiCd (nickel-cadmium) batteries. NiCd batteries had to be completely discharged before recharging or the NiCd batteries would suffer a drop in voltage at the point the battery began recharging. The NiCd battery would "remember " that point where the battery began recharging and would cause problems.

NiCd batteries contain cadmium, which is a dangerous toxic heavy metal. Cadmium can cause severe pollution to water, air and land if incinerated or buried by releasing toxic gas. These batteries need to be recycled!

Recharging the batteries often and not letting the batteries fully drain can extend the life of NiMH batteries. NiMH batteries can typically be recharged between 500 - 1000 times depending on their use and how much each battery is drained before recharging.

The one disadvantage (you knew there had to be one, right?) of NiMH batteries is they discharge at a significant rate: about 5-10% the first day, then leveling off between 0.5 - 1% per day at room temperature. NiMH rechargeable batteries are excellent for digital cameras, MP3 players, portable game systems, PDAs, portable CD players and toys because these are high-drain devices that will need to be recharged a lot.

Alkaline batteries may seem cheaper at first glance, but since you can only use them once and then throw away (please recycle), alkaline batteries are actually quite expensive once you add up all of the times you have to throw out batteries and buy more instead of recharging them over and over again several hundred times.

Because of their less-harsh compounds towards the environment, lack of a "memory effect" and the capability to recharge hundreds of times (instead of buying hundreds of alkaline batteries), NiMH rechargeable batteries should be used for most applications in your home or on the road. They are real money-savers and help protect the environment by producing less trash in our landfills.

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