RECHARGING OUR BATTERIES:


Some of you will wonder what this article has to do with Jazz Guitar or even with music in general...

We musicians and/or music lovers happen to use a number of electronic appliances that are battery operated. I personally have a few metronomes, tuners, an mp3 recorder, a portable CD player, a portable cassette player, a drum-machine, a couple of effect pedals... and I can also add a couple of non-musical items such as an alarm clock or a torch-light. Whenever possible, I will of course prefer using an AC adaptor, but most of the time, I have to rely on batteries. Now, we are talking about a fairly large number of batteries that are being used in the course of a year...

What happens to those batteries, once they die ? Discarded batteries are considered extremely toxic to the environment, and I bet that most of you didn't even know it, but it is actually illegal to throw batteries out in the trash !!! Click on this link for more info:

http://colehardware.com/hotline/2006/03/battery.htm

The good news is that it is now very easy to bring dead batteries to various stores for recycling. Cole Hardware in San Francisco is just one of them.

But here's what makes a real difference: rechargeable batteries. A couple of years ago, I purchased a battery charger and a few rechargeable batteries of various sizes-- and I feel so much better about using batteries now! For a very reasonable initial investment (the charger itself and the rechargeable batteries) I now save a fair amount of money by not buying brand new throw-away batteries all the time. I also know that I don't contribute as much to the pollution of our environment.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that we should not be using non-rechargeable batteries at all-- I still do buy some, but only occasionally. I'm only suggesting that we should think about using rechargeable ones as much as possible. I find that for most appliances the rechargeable batteries perform just as well as their non-rechargeable counterparts.

The only inconvenience is that it can take a little while to fully recharge a set of batteries, which means that you have to think ahead, or carry some spare already re-charged batteries with you. It is probably also a good idea to actually still have a few non-rechargeable ones around the house in case of emergency.

I will stop my lecturing here... but when you get a chance, look into it and see for yourself !






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