Just last night it was that I phoned Sonicare, which turned out to be Philips ("sense and simplicity" being their new slogan)(is it just me, or are they milking the reawakening of the Jane Austen frenzy?) Yes, I had a weekend emergency! My toothbrush was not accepting a charge. I don't know why, since it's been in storage for over five years, but, the truth was plain.
A very nice lady answered and explained to me that my battery had, "dried out," and that the unit needed to be kept upright in the charger. So folks: don't lay your charger sideways! Took a little dickering to get to the fact that it was recommended it be upright in a plugged in charger. I did point out to the kind lady the impracticality and unlikelihood of having a toothbrush upright in a charger, in storage. No guarantees if you lay your charger sideways, or if your toothbrush is in storage! Though she did say one might get 4-5 years out of battery life if properly stored (i.e., upright, in the charger!)
But now to my real dilemma! (You can tell I'm a hot date on a Saturday night!) The battery is not replaceable!!! What?!? Turns out this lil' number has a welded in battery and it cannot be replaced. She told me the battery was recyclable, however. But before we get into the details of that...
I pointed out to the fine lady the antiquity of this design. I described the simplicity of special ordering a new rechargeable battery for my Black & Decker cordless drill. I suggested that if hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of men across the country had to part with their cordless power tools each time a battery was spent, there would perhaps be riots! I'm not joking. Can't you see it?
As if this weren't alarming enough, this gal said Philips has no recycling program, that it was up to the consumer to dispose of the battery via their city recycling program. I did let her know that except for major metropolitan areas, battery recycling was largely unproffered by municipalities, and that I hoped Philips would take some responsibility, having created such a product, for the disposal of such. We didn't even get into the plastic part. She did indicate she would pass my comments on to corporate. Well, that's a relief.
Actually, I do think for the enterprising soul, the City of Bozeman will take rechargeables, like your car battery, just to keep them out of the waste stream. More on this later...
Well...so...as disturbing as this all was, there is a tiny ray of hope. Philips does make a toothbrush that takes 2 AA batteries, for those of you who use rechargeable batts and want a shiny tooth option. And get this: it's way, way cheaper than a standard Philips model! Less than half the cost at $29.99! I'm all about that. We had a brief interlude of complaining about how often one had to recharge AA batteries for cameras, and concluded our call. Ahhh... The sweet success of commiseration, and the bitter disappointment of commerce. Why so backwards? I ask myself this, "Why?" with a fair amount of frequency. It's the year 2012.
Anyway, here is the link for the only Sonicare toothbrush option that takes recyclable batteries you can easily replace yourself: http://store.philips.com/store?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=rpeusb2c&productID=108362600 And guess what? On this link, it's out of stock!!! I love it! I'm sure with a minimal amount of poking about, one can be found, but... Good luck!
Happy trails! And, happy teeth and gums!
tg
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