Sustainability – Alt-Tech

Sustainability is a core value driving Alt-Tech’s evolution.

At Alt-Tech we retail all kinds of cool tech that allows our customers freedom to adventure, to be self-sufficient and realise all kinds of off-grid power solutions. All this tech offers an accessible, renewable alternative to fossil fuel power generation.

Many of the products we sell contain valuable minerals, a finite resource. We can avoid digging more of these minerals out of the ground by ensuring products fulfill their complete lifecycles.

Circular Economy

We strive to champion circular economic principles throughout our business and we hope to inspire our customers to follow suit.

What is a circular economy?

A circular economic model moves away from the current linear consumption pattern. It preserves finite resources and recognises the value in product reuse, repurposing and finally recycling once an item has truly reached the end of its life.

Why we retail second life solar panels

The incredible growth of the solar industry, rapid pace of tech advancement and Australian rebate system has resulted in fully functional rooftop panels being removed, on average, at less than a third of their predicted lifespan in Australia. These panels are perfect for use in low current off-grid systems.

All used panels we retail are assessed for performance and come with a five year warranty.

What about second life batteries?

Lithium batteries lose capacity at a predictable rate. This means you can test a used cell and determine how long it will last. The lifecycle of LiFePo4 cells is illustrated below.

Second-life cells typically come from electric vehicles or UPS (back up systems where they are required by law to be changed out on a regular basis).
Often they retain 95% of their original capacity so you get a battery that performs like new, that will last just as long – reaping environmental as well as financial benefits.

If a lithium phosphate battery battery cell has 3000 cycles that (generally) means that at the end of those 3000 cycles it will still hold 80% of its original capacity. It may not be suitable for it's original application but it doesn’t stop working at this stage -instead, it has another 3000 cycles (almost 10 years at 1 cycle per day) before it holds 80% capacity of that, this cycle continues until the capacity reaches a level where it is no longer viable for reuse and requires recycling.

All of our used batteries are tested and come with a warranty.

Lithium cells – 2 year warranty
2v Lead Acid – 12 month warranty
12v Lead Acid – 2 month warranty

Customer roof rack constructed from used solar rail

Reuse of other system components

In addition to batteries and solar panels we also retail used solar rail, clamps, battery links and other non-tech components. These items are still fully functional and reuse saves them from entering the recycling system.

Some of the other ways in which we embody our sustainability ethos in our business are:

Over 90% of shop fittings, pallet racking and shelving is reused
Packaging reuse & use of recycled and compostable tape and strapping materials
Creating battery links from offcut cable
Desks made from defunct solar panels
Storage solutions made from shipping crates
Used pallets sent for recycling into wood chip for agricultural applications

All of our used batteries are tested and come with a warranty.