Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in cereal

boxes in Canada. I'm amazed this was going on at all. I wonder where the stuff came from to begin with (I'm guessing China) and how much more of it there is.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/07/15/mercury040715.html

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

I get the feeling that China is turning into an ecological disaster zone.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

Hello Paul,

There goes their "Fortified with Vitamin M" rating...

This is crazy, I had no idea...

Tom

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
SilverFox said:

There goes their "Fortified with Vitamin M" rating...

This is crazy, I had no idea...



[/ QUOTE ]

Er, wouldn't it be their Hg rating?

Then again, in a serious vein, I seriously doubt there's any measurable mercury escape to the cerial.

I suspect we're talking about alkaline cells laced with mercury rather than mercury oxide cells. Remember 'other alkaline AAs' contain traces of mercury or cadimum? The content is probably very low, but from a PR standpoint, it's a bummer.

Doug Owen

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

I recently had to hijack my kids spyderman toy, after finding out the toy had mercury in it.

Was amazed a major ceral maker would allow this to happen. I though it was against the law to import mercury batteries into the US.

My 60.s Nikon F uses two mercury batteries for the light meter. After the supplies dried up, it was a major pain to find batteries with the correct output. 1.35V VS 1.4v. Finaly settled upon a carbon zinc hearing aid battery w/spacer.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

I don't think there's a big safety hazard of mercury leaking into the cereal. Mercury cells are a big problem because sometimes cells are incinerated after disposal, spewing mercury vapor into the air, etc.

Mercury cells haven't been available in the US in years, and there are all kinds of gizmos for adapting old camera exposure meters to work on non-mercury cells. So I was amazed to hear that mercury cells are showing up in kids' toys.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

Does anyone know the brand name and/or model of the cell? I wonder if it is really a mercuric oxide cell or just one that contains 'incidental' mercury.

BTW, laws aside, one can still get real mercury cells such as the px625 in the USA if you are willing to pay for them (about $10 each and rising). I keep some around for my camera collection. There is really no good substitute.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

i have 2 old accutron spaceview watches and had to put a schottky diode in series with the battery to prevent the dreaded double indexing on the 214 movement.
all i can find is the silver oxide batt so i came up with this mod.bet it will work with cameras too.
damm i got in here too late.
nothin like a little mercury on the ol cornflakes to kick start you in the morning

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
namati said:
Does anyone know the brand name and/or model of the cell? I wonder if it is really a mercuric oxide cell or just one that contains 'incidental' mercury.

BTW, laws aside, one can still get real mercury cells such as the px625 in the USA if you are willing to pay for them (about $10 each and rising). I keep some around for my camera collection. There is really no good substitute.

[/ QUOTE ]I took the toy apart of course, the batteries are no name. It drives a coool red led that projects a red spyder, fairly bright too.

PX 625 is replaced by a hearing aid carbon zinc battery. works perfect. if you need the real #'s please pm and I'll find the package.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

Mercury batteries have very stable voltage at 1.35 volts or so. Some old cameras depended on that stability as a voltage reference so if you use a 1.5 volt battery, the light meter would be slightly inaccurate, and if you adjust the meter to be accurate at 1.5 volts, it will become inaccurate as the zinc carbon battery voltage droops.

Wein made some zinc-air cells as mercury replacements, which were designed for similarly flat discharge curves. They're expensive and they don't last all that long.

There are also some adapters that use other button cells plus electronics to regulate the voltage. I guess that's the best approach.

Not so many of those old cameras are in service any more anyway though, and those that are, are generally used as meterless cameras.

Designing any modern device to depend on mercury batteries is of course insane.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

did anyone measure the voltage on these to see if they are real hg batts?
if it is just trace amounts like many alkalines have whats the big deal?
if you wanna worry about mercury look at all the fluorescent tubes that are tossed every day.
just put some new tubes in a shoplite here and you could see the globs of hg rolling around inside the new tubes.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

I took the toy apart, removed batteries. They both measure 1.445 volts by a fluke meter. They used triangle bit security screw, easily defeated by a small bladed screwdriver.

All my mercury 625 batteries measured 1.36 volts new.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
cy said:
I took the toy apart, removed batteries. They both measure 1.445 volts by a fluke meter. They used triangle bit security screw, easily defeated by a small bladed screwdriver.

All my mercury 625 batteries measured 1.36 volts new.

[/ QUOTE ]

My money's still on alkaline cells. Stop and think a minute, what's the cheapest cell that size? Why would they put a mercury cell in there that costs many times more than the easier to get alternative and then *give* it away?

Doug Owen

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

The mercury in the cereal is one thing. To me the most troubling quote in the article was

"It's designed to last about 10 minutes," said environmentalist Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada in Ottawa. "It's not identified in any way that a parent would know that I must take responsibility for this, and make sure it doesn't just go in the trash."

Who in their right mind would throw away a flashlight, for goodness sake? That thought is just scary! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Kirk

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

Cy's voltage measurement is interesting but it's possible that the batteries shipped to Canada aren't the same ones Cy got in the U.S.

It could also be that they're talking about alkaline batteries that contain some mercury. I guess those are still being made. Mercury-free alkaline batteries are still pretty new. Mercury-containing alkaline batteries have, of course, much less mercury than actual mercury batteries.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
Kirk said:
The mercury in the cereal is one thing. To me the most troubling quote in the article was

"It's designed to last about 10 minutes," said environmentalist Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada in Ottawa. "It's not identified in any way that a parent would know that I must take responsibility for this, and make sure it doesn't just go in the trash."

Who in their right mind would throw away a flashlight, for goodness sake? That thought is just scary! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Kirk

[/ QUOTE ] The toy drives a real nice red led, projecting a coool red syder. I would guess the life to be 10+ hours runtime. Used intermitten the toy has a real long life.

this is the nicest toy I've ever seen in a ceral box. further there was a note packed in the toy plainly stating there was mercury cells in the toy. That's how I knew from the notice, not this post.

going fromt the voltages measured, these are probably alkalines w/traces of mercury.

I wonder how this got by the marketing people. It would not take a rocket scientist to figure out. How putting mercury notices in a cereal box would turn out.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
Kirk said:
The mercury in the cereal is one thing. To me the most troubling quote in the article was

"It's designed to last about 10 minutes," said environmentalist Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada in Ottawa.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, oh man, I missed that. If no lesser expert than a (lower case) environmentalist with the *Sierra Club*, not to mention from Canada, has set us straight why are we even discussing this? Now that we understand the one true truth, why are we all wasting time at our computers when we could be either picketing stores, sending money to Greenpeace or Earth First or (if we're really committed to making the world a better place) planning 'actions' to further the cause.......

Honest, objective, scientific facts from such trusted sources should end the debate.

Doug Owen

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
Doug Owen said:
My money's still on alkaline cells. Stop and think a minute, what's the cheapest cell that size? Why would they put a mercury cell in there that costs many times more than the easier to get alternative and then *give* it away?

Doug Owen

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't the cheapest battery be a regular zinc-carbon (non-alkaline) cell? Of course if there's a mercury warning included in the box, I guess that rules this out.

Re: Kelloggs stops putting mercury batteries in ce

[ QUOTE ]
PhotonWrangler said:
[ QUOTE ]
Doug Owen said:
My money's still on alkaline cells. Stop and think a minute, what's the cheapest cell that size? Why would they put a mercury cell in there that costs many times more than the easier to get alternative and then *give* it away?

Doug Owen

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't the cheapest battery be a regular zinc-carbon (non-alkaline) cell? Of course if there's a mercury warning included in the box, I guess that rules this out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Due to the difference in construction, zinc carbon doesn't happen in button cells. The cathode in the button cell is a gel IIRC, a carbon button isn't possible. The cheapest button cells AFAIK are alkalines.

Doug Owen