Edible Batteries

Edible Batteries

….they’re real, rechargeable, and maybe, an answer we’re looking for.

According to the National Safety Council, around 3,500 people a year swallow a button battery, and a whopping 2,500 of them are kids, who often also get button batteries stuck in their noses or ears.

Most pass through the body and are eliminated, but sometimes they get hung up in the esophagus. An electrical current can form in the body and hydroxide, an alkaline chemical, can form in as little as two hours, creating an esophageal perforation, vocal cord paralysis, or even erosion into the airway. Signs a child may have swallowed a battery include, but are not limited to: coughing, refusing to eat or drink, vomiting, or noisy breathing. Obviously, the shiny button batteries that are so interesting to toddlers, and the poor-quality battery doors that often don’t hold them in are a real risk in our industry.

The good news, however, is that one of the teams that have developed the edible and rechargeable battery may have the answer to that. The battery includes components made of materials found in nuts and capers, along with a water-based electrolyte, and the conductivity is boosted by activated charcoal. This first breakthrough might not only offer a solution for promotional products, but also for medical products — think about a small pill-like camera you could simply swallow to gather gastrointestinal data — and serve as an incentive for others currently working on “green batteries.”

The team from the Italian Institute of Technology published a paper on their edible power source in the journal Advanced Materials. Right now, it’s just a proof of concept, there are solid prototypes, but they aren’t quite in production just yet. It does, however, offer hope for a solution to a major safety issue for us.

Let’s turn now to a consumer risk you may not be aware of concerning contact lenses. If you, your clients, or your family wear contacts, you need to see (pardon the pun) this info. Mamavation, an online website and community is considered a trusted source for non-toxic product recommendations, health research, organic food, clean indoor air quality, and the latest for both green and not-so-green-yet consumers. The team there sent 18 different soft contact lenses off unannounced to an EPA-certified lab to have them tested for indications of PFAS. This study, released in partnership with Environmental Health News, is extremely troubling because 100 percent of the popular contact lens products sent came back with various levels of organic fluorine, a marker for PFAS. That would make it pretty clear from this study that all of us could assume that our contact lenses contain high amounts of PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which you know to be persistent endocrine-disrupting compounds).

So, what are the next steps from this news:

1. Communication. Reach out to your preferred brands and make your optometrists and ophthalmologists aware of this problem.

2. Conversation. When you talk to your doctors first ask about whether switching to an option with less PFAS is a good choice for you. Some of us have more options than others.

3. Temporary change. While wearing glasses may seem like an obvious option to reduce PFAS exposure, it’s still only some, but not for everyone. Seeing well and comfortably is the most important thing here. Don’t suffer or compromise vision while working through this.

So, based on the study by Mamavation and Environmental Health News, what’s the best of the worst contact lens to wear at this point if you really must? These contacts from Acuvue, Alcon, and Alon were sent to an EPA-certified lab and found to have less than 200 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine. Unfortunately, there were no products in which PFAS were non-detected.

Acuvue Oasys with Hydraclear Plus Brand Contact Lenses with UV Blocking — 113 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

Acuvue Oasys with Hydraclear Plus for Astigmatism — 105 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

Alcon AIR OPTIX plus HydraGlyde with Smartshield Technology — 119 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

Alcon Dailies MULTIFOCAL TOTAL 1 One-Day Contact Lenses Water Gradient — 183 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

Alcon Dailies TOTAL 1 One-Day Contact Lenses Water Gradient for Astigmatism — 106 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

Alon Air OPTIX plus HydraGlyde for Astigmatism — 173 parts per million (ppm) organic fluorine

So, if you’re not wearing these specific brands, or don’t know your brand, now if the time to reach out to your eye professional.

Finally, let’s go back to child safety. A current social media trend involves posting photos of organizing your home to achieve sleek, minimalistic results. But the Trade Association of the Cleaning Products Industry says when everything starts being stored in trendy glass or plastic canisters in the laundry room, we’ve entered the danger zone.

On the social media channels, there are many examples of people putting their detergent pods, scent crystals, and laundry powders in glass containers or liquid laundry detergents in beverage dispensers as decorative storage. But, in a new report, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) found nearly 800,000 posts promoting the unsafe storage of laundry packets in recent years.

Brian Sansoni from the American Cleaning Institute says it’s similar to the shiny object risk of button batteries. “Children, especially young children, are attracted to just about anything shiny or colorful. No matter what color it is, and if they can reach it, they will try to grab it. That's why we certainly advise against taking any type of cleaning product, fabric care product out of the original containers because they have child-resistant packaging.”

There’s hope on the horizon for your clients in the form of green batteries, and for everybody when the contacts containing PFAS are replaced with safer ones and disposed of properly. Now, just don’t let those clients source glass or plastic canisters that could be considered appealing to children. The risk is best avoided up front altogether.