Canadian distributor and retailer RONA introduced an alkaline-battery charger that works for regular disposable batteries. This new product, available under the RONA ECO brand, has been analyzed by the International Chair in Life Cycle Assessment at École Polytechnique de Montréal.

The device can recharge four AA or AAA batteries at a time. The recharge time only takes 90 minutes, and the charger can recharge the same battery up to 200 times, raising the average life expectancy of a battery from eight hours to 1,600 hours, according to RONA.