THE WONDERFUL THING
ABOUT PORTABLE SOLAR POWER
THE WONDERFUL THING
ABOUT PORTABLE SOLAR POWER
The Demand For Batteries
Batteries are expensive. They drain our pocketbooks and our budgets. Between cameras, camcorders, MP3 players, iPods, portable DVD and CD players, cell phones, PDAs, GPS devices, and countless battery-operated toys, the demand for batteries and power is greater than ever. Even our mice need batteries.
Batteries are terrific inventions, but not very earth-friendly. Rechargeable batteries aren’t exactly safe either. Nickel cadmium (NiCd) is a heavy metal contaminant if not recycled properly. But at least they give you, potentially, a thousand charges before they have to be replaced, unlike their one-use peers.
Most batteries are less toxic than they were ten to twenty years ago. Much of the scary mercury is gone, but not all. Acids and heavy metals are still involved, even with the nearly harmless lithium-ion, nickel metal hydride (NiMH), and zinc air batteries.
When chemicals are buried, they leach and creep into the soil. When incinerated, they float around in the air before settling into the water and soil. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that Americans buy 350 million batteries a day. Yikes! How many of those are contaminating your food and water?
The fewer batteries we discard, the better. In fact, most battery companies strongly urge and promote battery recycling and they keep looking for ways to reduce waste. (Drop in on the bunny, - he’s more than a star bass drummer.)
Plus, to recharge all these nifty batteries you have to plug them in and use yet another source of energy that costs money.
Enter the Solar Chargers
These handy portable chargers have become convenient, reliable, and cost nothing to use at all. Once you’ve made the initial purchase, you have the almighty power of the sun to power up all your toys! And so far, sun power is still free.
The flurry of portable solar chargers has hit the market in last few years giving us all kinds of options to suit all our various needs. From simple little panels to carry in your bag or purse, to panels that are a part of a backpack, you can literally charge your devices up at will.
You can use them on the go, like while camping, backpacking, or adventuring. You can use them for your daily deeds. You can even save a little more money and use the solar cells to charge your devices up while you’re at home. Many of the portable panels also have internal batteries that retain a charge so the power is there when you need it.
Some solar chargers are designed for specific uses like charging your cell phone or GPS devices. Others come with a variety of connectors, or plug kits for each of your toys, so you can use one charger for your phone, MP3 or iPod, CD or DVD players, PDAs, and your GPS trackers.
There are backpacks, fanny packs, and cute little packs with solar panels installed in them. So, instead of carrying your panels in your bag, you can use your solar bag to carry your half a dozen toys instead, and perhaps throw in your books and laptop, hiking guides and water, extra music and movies, even an extra pair of socks and underpants.
The sun is reliably around during the day, even when it’s hiding behind the clouds, so you can whip your cells out and charge as needed. There are so many advantages to using solar power, once you start using it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t try it sooner. Along with the conveniences of the bags and backpacks, the variety of uses and sizes grows as rapidly as the technological toys do.
Clean and free power? Now, who wouldn’t want that?
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