Whether you use glow sticks for fun or for tactical purposes, the fact remains that they are designed to be a single-use disposable item… With this little trick, you should be able to kind of recharge and reuse good quality glow sticks.
Glow sticks tend to last anything from a few hours to several days. The trick to recharging and being able to reuse them a few times is putting them in the freezer. Freezing the glow stick stops the chemical reaction and seems to recharge them to a degree. It seems unlikely but we did this yesterday with some of the kids’ glow sticks and worked as advertised. This trick will not work on totally discharged glow sticks, they have to be frozen whilst still glowing (the brighter the better).
When you want to use the glow stick again, just take it out of the freezer, crack it and shake it and it should come back to life and work again. Apparently you can repeat the process several times, although each time you do it they lose some brightness.
I wouldn’t use this technique on glow sticks used for tactical or survival purposes, but you’ve got nothing to use trying with kids and party glow sticks.
