[pressld2]

I bought myself a small wind-up torch a couple of months back. Wind-up is a bit of a misnomer in this case as it just has a small lever at the side which turns a fly wheel inside when you press it. Spend a few minutes pressing the lever and you get a couple of hours of LED light. Not the brightest torch I've ever seen but good enough to avoid tripping over things.

I take Pete's point though that if the energy cost of manufacturing the mechanism for generating and storing the charge is greater than that of the batteries it might consume during its expected life then it's not really eco-friendly. It's so hard to be sure about these things.

Dave P.