An early heads up here about PowerChute, which is currently offering early birds 33% off its soon-to-launch Indiegogo campaign.
Retailers such as IKEA are phasing out single-use batteries, but currently less that 10% of people use rechargeable household batteries. This is – PowerChute says – because they’re ugly, with charging points exposed and the added hassle of differentiating charged and uncharged batteries.
PowerChute has created a snazzy, family-friendly battery charger it hopes will make single-use batteries a thing of the past. It’s promoting a cheaper and significantly more environmentally friendly way of doing things.
How does the contraption work? Empty AA or AAA batteries can be dropped in the top, which feeds into a rotating carousel. This sorts, charges and stores the batteries in rotation. “Its so simple a child can use it”, reads the pitch.
‘Urban harvest’ is a cool term I just learnt. It refers, in this case, to the practice of harvesting chopsticks (rather than wood from trees) and repurposing them to make shelves. 50 billion chopsticks are thrown away every year in North America, and ChopValue is making sure at least some of them don’t end up in landfill.
SMĪLE is ChopValue’s latest foray into the circular economy, currently overfunding on Kickstarter with two weeks to go. It is a carbon neutral (and beautiful) shelving unit, made from 4,276 recycled chopsticks.
Apparently, by recycling those chopsticks into your new SMĪLE shelf, you’re storing around 6.5 kg of CO2 that otherwise would’ve been released into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of charging your phone every day for nearly three years.
The SMĪLE shelving unit comes in three colour palettes, and is modular so you can change up placement as often as you want.
“Our hope is to help you make more conscious decisions by sharing how we source our materials, how we process them, and what you can do with your products’ end of life”, says founder Felix Böck.
