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"Child Resistant" hearing aid batteries — issues?

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It’s an pain in the ass using knife or scissors to cut thru the child resistant battery packs. I guess it’s aimed to prevent child swallowing the batteries. It’s too restrictive packing for seniors.

In reply to @kgmgpm

What memory card is that case made for - compact flash? SD card cases might be too thin?

You’ve found it doesn’t matter if the battery vertical edges touch? Don’t most of the manufacturers say to prevent all touch. I wonder if one could cut small circles in there foam to keep the batteries spaced apart.

In reply to @user490

The foam pad insulates the positive side of the battery from each other, ions don’t travel between negative poles even if they touch and there is no shifting of the battery’s as the foam pad prevents slipping, the case is hard plastic, in all the years that I have used this method I have never had any problems. Regardless of what the expert’s want you to do.

I’m a 33-year-old, very capable young adult. I’ve been wearing hearing aids since I was 4. This new packaging is absolutely obnoxious. I’ve nearly stabbed myself trying to use a knife, and standard kitchen scissors barely do the trick. I end up pre-cutting all my batteries, which honestly could pose a bigger risk of accidentally losing a battery for a child to find than a child finding my battery pack.

I’m not about to start carrying scissors everywhere with me, plus I travel by plane a bit… I don’t think TSA allows “hearing aid package opening scissors” on the plane.

I cannot imagine my 4-year-old self being able to handle this new packaging, let alone anyone with a medical condition affecting dexterity. Has anyone started a petition to end this stupid packaging?

There’s another post in here. Law was passed and includes hearing aids under packaging, but they are exempt. I wrote to the rep who wrote this law, expressing my concerns. I’d suggest you do the same:

Robin L Kelly
2329 Rayburn house office building
Washington DC
20515

When I sent my letter, I was kind enough to include a package to the state rep. I asked him to try opening it without scissors (airplanes, govt buildings, etc) lol

Yes. My preferred battery is Rayovac 312. The new packages are almost impossible to open!
A good example of when a rule backfires: these are so diffiuclt to open that I remove all of the batteries from the package in advance, which has the opposite affect as intended. Now the batteries are loose and a bigger hazard for children.

I take a pair of scissors and cut a circle all the way around all the batteries in the pack. Then its fairly easy to pry the back off and all of the batteries will fall out. I put them in the old spinning containers.

I fully understand and support making the packaging for hearing aid disposable batteries child proof.
I protest that the manufactures have done such a poor job of it. They have taken the absolutely cheapest route by simply eliminating the “carousel”, so that the user must use sharp scissors to get to the batteries.
The new packaging is more or less human proof.
We have decades of experience making medicine packaging child proof. I want the hearing aid battery manufacturers to design a child-proof package that is user friendly for adults.
Does anyone else feel strongly about the cynical approach taken by all the manufacturers of hearing aid batteries?

I’d like to see Joe Biden or Donald Trump try and get into a child resistant hearing aid battery packet on live TV.

To me it seems a cynical approach by hearing aid battery manufacturers. By using this most inconvenient design they have significantly lowered their manufacturing costs (by no longer using the carousel approach). But do we see a price reduction? Of course not.
When a savvy competitor designs a better child-proof package I will happily pay a bit more for it.

I almost laughed when I saw a child-resistant package, because it seems like they changed it as little as possible, without any concern for inconvenience. I don’t know whether the child-resistant package costs more or less to make than the old one. My guess is that it costs a tiny bit more because of the extra plastic.

@RPeruzzi said:

I fully understand and support making the packaging for hearing aid disposable batteries child proof.

I don’t, because hearing aid (zinc-air) batteries aren’t an ingestion hazard. They don’t cause the injuries that Reese’s Law was meant to protect against. Congress left it up to the CPSC whether to include zinc-air in the regulation, and I believe CPSC made the wrong decision.

In reply to @RPeruzzi

It’s ironic because the other packaging for the other coin batteries are MORE accessible than these. Just plain stupid. I have heard the manufacturers made them complicated since they were opposed to this law. But, who knows what the truth is?

For those wondering, here is a readable copy of the letter I sent as well. I did include a package of the “child-resistant” hearing aid batteries and asked him to attempt to open them without the use of scissors, considering airplanes, government buildings, or areas where scissors are not readily available.

If anyone else wants to send a letter, feel free to. The irony is that had a child ingested the battery in a daycare, or a school, the parents probably would have sued the people responsible. Not gone to lawmakers to change the manufacturing of battery packaging.

Copy of To the honorable Representative Robin L31

To the honorable Representative Robin L. Kelly 2329 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-0773 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5313/cosponsors H.R.5313-Reese’s Law 117th Congress (2021-2022) ...

A bit harsh, but hopefully once they try to open the batteries, they’ll get my point.

The family is also trying to push to mandate child proofed battery doors. Hopefully this never happens.

In reply to @x475aws

@x475aws said:

a tiny bit more because of the extra plastic.

Probably a lot more plastic, and then there is the footprint issue an making all that extra plastic, plus depending were in the world, the recycling of it all, here I recycle just about everything, but out there is going to probably load up the dump sites more not the mention the microplastics issues that we have.

In reply to @jiffy

I posted a while back asking how to make this packaging better. I’ve found a way that makes my life easier. I noticed when I made the first cut on a new pack that I could almost get to 2 batteries. So, I got ahold of the finer pieces, between the batteries and discovered that y are pretty easy to pull off. After that experiment I discovered I didn’t need the scissors that whole layer, with a bit of effort but far less than using scissors would pull off.

I then realized they had fixed the clear plastic. Fixed as in it doesn’t turn. BUT, it does lift reasonably easy and the batteries don’t all fall out when stored.

TLDR : pull the top layer of cardboard off that has the fingers between the batteries. Easy to do if you start with a tip of a finger or two. Then life the plastic and slip the battery out!

For what it is worth, I always thought the problem was more likely the coin batteries. With hearing aids opened at night and sitting out the packaging is not protecting the batteries from small hands. Similar, since the package says to not put these in regular trash you probably have a container for the dead batteries, and the stupid packaging isn’t protect those either! I so want to go to the Hill and ask one of the sponsors of this bill to open my hearing aids. The bill was not thought out completely, and I’m not sure which seniors tested these and said they were scissor friendly because I want to know what scissors they used!!!

Hth!

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