There are a few different ways to recharge your iPod or MP3 player, including the old fashioned method of plugging it into a wall socket, charging it via USB, and even the recently announced ‘shoe recharger’ that we featured a few weeks ago. Now though a new, more environmentally friendly, way has been suggested.

Charging your iPod using an onion!

It started as a viral video on the Internet, which many people believed to be a hoax, but now claims from a shop worker in Portsmouth are that he has invented a way to recharge an iPod using an onion, soaked in a drink. He says he can add enough power to his MP3 player to last an hour, meaning you’ll never need to look for your charger again, so long as you have an onion to hand.

There is even a degree of science behind the notion, as the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Jon Edwards states:

The science behind the idea isn’t bad - you can generate an electric current from vegetables - but the video is a hoax.

It appears then that using an onion to charge iPod might not be the way forward, but it’s an interesting idea, and one that deserves further exploration.