Question
One of my patients called and asked if we carried mercury free hearing aid batteries. Aren't all zinc air batteries free of mercury?
Answer
Great question. There is actually a very small percentage - about 3% - of mercury in zinc air batteries. Mercury is a stabilizing element in hearing aid batteries. There has been some legislation out there to remove mercury from hearing aid batteries. So the battery industry came together and decided that by 2011, as an industry, there will no longer be mercury in hearing aid batteries.
Energizer launched the first full line of hearing aid batteries in the U.S. that are mercury free in 2008.
It took a lot of research and development to make that happen. We have been perfecting the zero mercury hearing aid battery for the last decade. In 2001, we launched zero mercury hearing aid batteries in the European market and since then, we have continued to refine and improve the quality of that battery and we now have a battery that we are ready to launch globally. So the Energizer zero mercury batteries achieve essentially the same performance as those with mercury and any difference that will be seen is going to be negligible to the consumer.
Serge Traylor is the Brand Manager, Hearing Aid Battery Division for Energizer.
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