PowerSource

Owing to the fact that we no longer have horses (thank God), we no longer have a need for a hay shed. In the spirit of recycling and good neighborlineness, I offered the shed to our neighbors, including taking the small shed apart, which required the use of my 10+ year-old Makita drill. Sadly, the battery pack and its back-up were kaput and would no longer hold a charge. What to do? The Makita itself is in dandy condition and looks good for another ten years. Buying a new drill with a new lithium ion battery pack would be fun (because buying electronic stuff is always fun) but it would cost a couple of hundred bucks, and result in the Makita going to the dump.

Or, I could buy a replacement NiCd battery pack for $37 from Amazon. Makita apparently no longer supports the battery pack, but this replacement battery, made by TopCell, claims to use Panasonic or Sanyo cells and has received some good reviews. So that’s what I bought.

NiCd is nasty toxic stuff, but I don’t like spending money unnecessarily, nor do I like throwing stuff away that still has years of service in it. I see from the EDN blog Critical Links, A new batteries directive with a new focus -- and new consequences, that in Europe the battery directive is exempting NiCd batteries used in portable equipment from the ban on cadmium use in electronics, at least through 2010.

My purchase of a NiCd replacement battery pack comes under the heading of Slacker Environmentalist: My initial reaction of wanting to buy a less-toxic battery chemistry got outvoted by my competing desire to extend the life of my equipment.

Here’s a zip code finder for battery recycling locations, apparently for anywhere in the US: http://earth911.org .