It seems that we currently live in a world which is obsessed with recycling and saving money. With this in mind, you may be interested to know that, according to statistics, the average household uses 21 batteries a year and each year we throw away over 600 million batteries. In addition, the battery market in the UK is worth £250 million per annum and on average each UK household will spend over £100 a year on them!

So what’s the answer…… well I guess a good place to start would be to use rechargeable batteries. A few months ago I would have said “No thanks, I’ll stick to throwing them away”. Not because I don’t care about the environment or saving money but more that my faith in and past experience with rechargeable batteries hasn’t been a good or pleasant experience. Those experiences involved waiting hours for batteries to charge and the horrible things running out very quickly then refusing to charge properly or even hold a decent charge….grrrrr.

Cue the Energizer 1Hour Battery Charger (Model No. CH1HR-2) for AA and AAA NiMH batteries which are the most commonly used types in our households. The unit and AC adapter are fairly lightweight, a far cry from the older models I had tried in the past and a definite bonus in persuading me to stop buying disposable batteries…… but do they work?

According to the packaging you can charge 1, 2, 3, or 4 AA or AAA batteries at a time and they take around an hour to charge. Past experience of charging times made me splutter with laughter but I was intrigued. Each battery has its own LED light once seated in the charger which glows green whilst charging and then goes off once charging is complete. A word of warning, the first time you use the charger you have to remove a strip of plastic placed between the batteries and the charger’s contact points else the batteries won’t charge. It’s a good job I spotted this when the other half was looking at me blankly, wondering why it wasn’t working otherwise this review may have been very different!

Sure enough when I checked around an hour or so later the lights had gone out. They lasted a whole weekend away in our normally power hungry camera which took around 150 pictures and several minutes of video footage and even after that they were still going! They have also had a top up charge since and thankfully coped with that too. The initial expense for the charger and extra batteries may seem at little steep but when you compare the price of a years’ worth of disposables it’s a definite saving in the long run.

So finally I think that someone has managed to produce a rechargeable battery and charger capable enough to convert me from disposables. A welcome relief to the environment and my pocket!

See Energizer's webite for more details.

RRP: 29.99 and available from Argos, B&Q & Wilkinsons along with other online retailers.