Energizer is offering primary alkaline batteries—called EcoAdvanced—with recycled content, thereby requiring less mining of virgin materials. The company also says the new batteries last longer than its other alkaline batteries.

Energizer is starting small—AA batteries will contain 4% recycled material by weight (although 10% of a key active ingredient), and AAA versions will contain 3.8% recycled material—and they have received UL Environment Claim Validation to that effect.

Lack of a supply of batteries to recycle contributes to the relatively low percentage of recycled materials in the first batches of EcoAdvanced batteries. The company said it is working with partners like Redux Recycling in Europe and Retriev Technologies in North America to improve and expand processing capacity—with the goal of increasing recycled content to 40% by 2025.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Michelle Atkinson, chief marketing officer, as saying, “Today there is a bottleneck. Because we have created economic value for this output, that is going to enable more processing to come online.”

The company says the EcoAdvanced batteries will last 12 years in storage.