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A convenient, affordable solution to purchasing and recycling batteries was the inspiration for Charlie Kawasaki to co-found BETTERY, the nation’s first kiosks for the responsible use and purchase of sustainable battery products. Kawasaki likens BETTERY kiosks, which are found at select Safeway and Whole Foods Markets locations in the Seattle and Portland metro areas, to Redbox kiosks, but instead of swapping DVDs and Blu-rays, it’s AA and AAA batteries. After an affordable one-time deposit to get started, customers can bring spent batteries back to the kiosk to swap them for new ones at a reduced cost. “About 2.5 billion single-use batteries that end up in U.S. landfills every year,” Kawasaki says. “We get to reuse our batteries up to 500 times. You take that environmental impact [of single-use batteries] and you get to divide it by 500 for each use of our batteries.”

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