Ah, the holidays. A time when people get millions of new gadgets powered by batteries. In a perfect world all those batteries would be rechargeable, but we know most people are too lazy (and too bad at math) to bother with that.

So millions of acid-filled batteries go into landfills instead of being treated as the hazardous waste they are. It’s not like most municipalities make it easy for you to dispose of them properly.

Enter the Fuji EnviroMax alkaline batteries. I wouldn’t really call them “green” since the batteries themselves are not recyclable nor even made from recycled materials, but you can toss them into the household garbage without feeling like you’re directly poisoning the planet. That’s a step in the right direction anyway. They’re free of mercury, cadmium, and PVC, which are all found in the usual batteries sold by the 40-pack at Wal-mart. And at least the packaging is made from recycled materials.

Of course people don’t want to give up performance, so thankfully these deliver as well as regular batteries. The company has data to prove that and in my unscientific test the two AA ones I installed in a Flip Ultra video camera are still going strong even after I let my daughter and her friend film silly videos of themselves for days on end. They come in all the usual sizes: AAA, AA, C, and D.

Prices are all over the map with these EnviroMAX batteries. In some places they are competitive with the regular acid sticks from Duracell and the like, but online they can range anywhere from $4.50 to $12 for a AA 4-pack, so shop around.

So is this green gear? Well, not really, but like using natural gas instead of coal, it’s an improvement if there’s a good reason you can’t use rechargeable batteries on your next trip.

See more at the official Fuji EnviroMax website

Get the AA 4-pack at Buy.com

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