As a stay at home mom with two young children, I see my family go through a lot of batteries. You know how children’s toys are these days.

I may not be much on gadgets, but there is one that’s high on my list for as soon as the budget permits… a good battery charger. I loathe buying batteries. I don’t care that rechargeable costs more off the bat, I like that I don’t have to keep throwing them away, or as things stand now, finding a place to recycle them. I’ve been checking out the products over at Responsible Energy Corporation.

Here in California, you’re not supposed to throw batteries in the trash anymore. It’s a good law, I think, but not well implemented. I only heard about it from my mother, and I do pay moderate attention to the news. Imagine how many people have no idea that they’re supposed to be recycling them now.

For battery recycling to be successful, I think much more needs to be done. More work on public awareness in particular. More work on helping people to know where they can recycle batteries. More places to recycle batteries.

Much like I was talking about the other day for electronics, I would love to see any place that sells batteries be required to take them in for recycling. Give them places to deliver the batteries they receive regularly.

Yes, I would love it if the common person cared enough to go out of their way to do the right thing with their old batteries. But I don’t expect it to happen. However, you can generally increase compliance by increasing the ease of compliance.

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