Help the recycling effort of batteries by getting a standard color printed on the battery.

This colour will indicate the chemistry of the battery and therefore make it easier to sort by humans or optical equipment. Even the wider public might get behind the standard. Large collections of the same chemistry batteries should (In theory. Form factor might still be a problem ) make it a lot easier to reprocess.

The world of consumer electronics is only going to get bigger and so too battery consumption, in all their forms. Trying to retain the active chemicals in some sort of repetitive cycle of manufacture and reprocessing makes environmental and use sense.
-- wjt, Jul 17 2009

Annotation delayer Mentioned in my anno; the idea where I discuss my "untouched in 10 years" view [notexactly, Jul 22 2019]

I like the idea but most batteries do state what they're made of on the label.
-- FlyingToaster, Jul 17 2009


Yes it does, right there on the bottom of the box after monosodium glutamate. This would make it easier.
-- zeno, Jul 17 2009


the solution, then, is to develop a cheese-and-onion based battery. Cheese is a good insulator, and onions are full of electrolytes, so I can't imagine this being much of a challenge.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2009


I like it, but i also want to reserve the right to make my own batteries and dispose of them responsibly.
-- nineteenthly, Jul 17 2009


//the solution, then, is to develop a cheese-and-onion based battery// would this be called Cheese-'n'-ions?
-- xenzag, Jul 17 2009


Cheese and anion.

(the cations would be in a little blue paper wrap)
-- coprocephalous, Jul 17 2009


Anions: -ive charge
Cations: +ive charge
Onions: 0 charge.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2009


"...I can't imagine this being much of a challenge."
As long as you're not using Swiss cheese.
-- phoenix, Jul 17 2009


Won't the battery companies get upset about not having their own identifying colours on their batteries? I think that you have to clarify that the colour would be in a band around the negative end of the battery, or some place where the battery companies wouldn't be upset about.

As for those cheese-and-onion batteries, I don't know how we're going to label them. Maybe food dye?
-- duh_don, Jul 20 2009


I thought advocacy (in the MFD sense) had to refer to some pre-existing cause.
-- pertinax, Jul 22 2009


If this is unacceptable advocacy, then isn't every idea that could benefit society overall?

The help file does indeed define "advocacy" as "promotes or protests an existing, often widely discussed, issue X that is very important to the author, without inventing new means to bring about or stop the discussed issue". In my opinion, this idea isn't *asking* more people to be aware of the issue of battery chemistry separation for recycling, while it *does* propose a new means to deal with the issue.

I had had a mistaken understanding of the related m-f-d reason "let's all", though. To wit, my mistaken beliefs:
- "everyone please use this so that there can be any benefit at all": no benefit unless/until widely used—what I thought was "let's all"
- "the more people use this, the more benefit there will be": acceptable and common; neither "advocacy" nor "let's all" because the benefit doesn't depend on everyone using it
Turns out what I thought was "let's all" is okay (?), "let's all" is actually just a variation on "advocacy" where the thing being advocated for is a practice rather than an issue, and it's irrelevant to an idea's acceptability whether it needs to be taken up by everyone to provide anyone any benefit.
-- notexactly, Jul 22 2019


notexactly, were you waiting until exactly a decade had elapsed since the previous comment, or was that a fluke?

(edit) OK, so given that you've just posted on another idea ("Squirming intubation tubes") with a decade interval- not a fluke.
But why? weird sorting bug? Testing observational skills of other bakers?
-- Loris, Jul 22 2019


... operating in a zone of consciousness decoupled from the normal space-time continuum ... ?
-- 8th of 7, Jul 22 2019


I have a view set up to show me ideas that were last annotated ten years ago to the day. I've discussed it on here somewhere, somewhen in the past few months. (It's not intended, but an amusing side effect of being ten years later is that only one character in the date stamp differs from the previous anno's, making it look like the previous one was added only earlier today if you don't look closely.)

I have one for twenty years, too, but it won't show me anything until around November or December, IIRC.

Edit: Found where I discussed it. Was easier than I expected. [link]
-- notexactly, Jul 22 2019



random, halfbakery