Laptop battery secret

Laptop batteries are made with extreme violence to the earth, extraction of rare earths, disturbance of fauna.  I use a laptop and I like it.   Here's something I learned at the ICRS Summit.

If you leave your laptop plugged in when it's fully charged, you are keeping its battery in an unnatural state.  It's actually designed to try to discharge itself as you are charging it.  The heat of being fully charged is tough on the battery.  If you like ordering $30-50 replacement batteries, plus shipping, I guess it's no big deal for you, but the environment would appreciate you taking the following step.

The best solution is the remove or kick-out the battery if you are sitting down and leaving it plugged in for awhile.  You can extend the battery life by a few years if you make that a habit.  Of course, you want to save your work more often.  And don't kick the cord out of the wall like I do.

Thanks to Paul Bessey of BatteriesPlus (Addison, Illinois) for this helpful hint towards source reduction of "e-waste".

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