A couple of weeks ago a disposable cell phone battery concept won a Red Dot design award and was featured on the Fast Co. Blog. The battery would be used to power up your mobile phone when you just don't have the time to plug in to the wall for power. And you could think of it as a vitamin pack or a jolt of caffeine for your phone, giving it the boost of energy it needs to get you to your destination. It would be sold in gas stations and convenience stores for people who may have forgotten their phone charger at home and ran out of power while on the go. The article even makes the claim that because the battery is self contained in cardboard and sold without additional packing that its environmentally friendly. This, unfortunately, is not the case.

You can see the article here : http://www.fastcodesign.com/3038609/wanted/this-tiny-cardboard-battery-is-like-a-vitamin-for-your-smartphone?utm_source=facebook

This battery concept is not a step in the right direction. Disposable batteries for you phone? Is that really necessary? Wrapping the battery in cardboard only serves to make it appear environmentally friendly because the design does not address the main environmental issue concerning batteries, which is the metal and chemical components inside the battery. File this one under deceptive design. The designer seems to think that the cardboard, which is biodegradable, is better for the environment but what about the battery's metal and chemical interior components? When disposed those components can leach out of the battery and contaminate soil and groundwater. The same soil that we grow our food in and the groundwater we place our drinking water wells in. Biodegradable does not always equal environmentally friendly, and indeed, this is a case where it doesn't. The article suggests that consumers would recycle the batteries at the place of purchase, but that is most certainly not going to happen except in the tiny minority of circumstances. It is wishful thinking to presume that consumers would treat this product differently than any other disposable item and actually recycle it.

And furthermore, recycling is an energy intensive process that should be considered a last resort when designing a product. One should prioritize reduction of material use and reuse of materials in product design before considering making a product or a component of it recyclable. There is a reason that in the environmental adage Reduce, Reuse, Recycle that recycle comes last. That reason is that recycling is the least beneficial of the three. One should always try to reduce or reuse materials before we are forced to reform them in the energy intensive recycling process.

Unfortunately, this product demonstrates how easy it is to create the perception of environmental friendliness. Make the outside a brown cardboard and say it's recyclable and people assume that it's good for the environment. The truth is more complicated and rarely easily condensable into a marketing blurb.

Here is the hard truth, a store that can sell you this disposable battery can sell a quick charger or have places to plug your phone in for a fee as I have seen in malls and airports. There is no reason to create an additional disposable battery to fill a market need that is already filled by a significantly less environmentally damaging technology such as fee based charging stations.

In other words, if I were in charge of this product's design I would have stopped the process at the Reduce stage of the design concept and reduced this product out of existence and put my design dollar in reusable quick chargers or fee based charging stations.

The lesson I hope to convey with this critique is that if one is trying to create a product they can legitimately call environmentally friendly that product (the battery) should not create more waste than an equal or better product already deployed (a quick charge station).

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3038609/wanted/this-tiny-cardboard-battery-is-like-a-vitamin-for-your-smartphone?utm_source=facebook

- Nicholas Moran

Are you interested in learning how to get your hazardous waste or recycling program off the ground? Do you need a trainer for your in house operation? Or a contractor / consultant to handle it on your behalf? Get in touch via LinkedIn or at my company email at nicholas.moran@cbi.com or drop me a line at 786-263-9185