On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 12:41:44 AM UTC-5, wrote:
When I put away the solar sidewalk lights in Winter, they stop being
charged, the batteries drain, and are often bad in Spring from being
discharged so long. The original lights often had a switch to shut off
the light (and the battery). But they have cheapened them up and none
have switches anymore. They come with a piece of paper or plastic that
is pulled out to expose the battery to it's contact, and are forever on
after that.

I have tried to push that battery cutoff (paper/plastic) back in, but it
just crumbles. I cut strips from a heavy cardboard, but that just folds
over or crushes and wont go in. Do they make anything (to sell) that
will shut them off?

On some of them, I remove the battery, and may even charge it during the
winter. Some are easy to take apart and remove the battery. Others are
complicated and difficult. I usually just do the easy ones, or I end up
with a pile of parts that need to be reassembled in Spring. Although
most of these lights are fairly cheap, I buy the ones that I like the
look of, and since I have a large amount of them, replacing them can get
costly and I will lose the ones I like.

If only they still put switches on them........

Since most people leave them out all year...that should be your solution!