Alkaline batteries are horrendous for the environment and require special care and treatment to recycle properly. Unfortunately this happens far too little. The Energy Seed LED halo shaped lamp uses the little remaining bits of juice left after the battery is otherwise unusable, and illuminates itself.

The design includes slots for the public to dispose of all shapes and sizes of commonly disposed batteries and scrounges just two volts to illuminate an LED. Most garbage batteries have just under this amount at their point of expiration, so two AAs combined for instance is usually enough to get the lamp lit.

Created by Sungwoo Park and Sunhee Kim the use of the Energy Seed means “Trashed batteries can be born again as a seed to blossom light.”

At the end of the day the batteries will lose all useful charge, they will again be waste, and need to be recycled properly. The Energy Tree does squeeze some useful life out of their toxic little bodies before the bitter end however!

Read more about Sunwoo Park and the Energy Tree at Yanko Design.