This is very similar to what's done today for car batteries in most of the US: you pay a deposit or core charge when buying a new battery, and it's refunded when you return the old one for recycling.
Good example because lead acid automotive battery manufacturing is close to being closed loop as 98% of battery material is recycled. Even the spent acid is converted to washing powder. The plastic and lead go right back into making new batteries.
This is certainly needed for lithium and other rechargeable battery tech going forward.
In Europe when you buy a battery you are already paying the tax for recycling, and places where they sell these batteries have to accept the dead batteries and send them for recycling.
Is it legal to dump batteries in the trash in the US?
In France you could get a significant fine for that.
If you throw other recyclables in regular bin, you would also get a warning the first time, and the workers would not pickup you trash after that if you continue.
Not sure how they are incentivized to check the bins, but they do.
That may happen here in some areas, but it doesn't happen anywhere I've lived.
Garbage collection in the US is increasingly mechanized, with trucks grabbing cans and dumping the bagged trash into a hopper vs. a person handling the trash can and its contents. People living in higher density areas would just put their bagged trash in a dumpster, with multiple homes or apartments sharing a cluster of dumpsters. So, I think it would require staffing or technology changes to inspect trash for proper recycling. I also think there would be a lot of resistance to this for cost and privacy reasons.
Some states in the US do use a deposit system for other things besides batteries. Glass and plastic bottles in particular have some sort of scheme where I think you pay extra up front and get it back when you recycle the bottle, but I've never lived in a state that had this so I am not sure exactly how that works. Generally speaking though, I think people would respond well to "cash for trash" and overall a positive incentive like this would be more popular and effective than having trash inspected.
An apartment complex I lived in was fined tens of thousands of dollars for improper waste sorting. This incented the complex staff to at least invest heavily in education and installed new cameras next to the dumpsters...
Environmental laws in US are loosely enforced by agencies with limited staff. Something like this is so small scale that it would be unlikely to create an issue for Bestbuy.
> What _really_ happens to the batteries that you responsibly deposit in the recycling container at your local supermarket?
Whatever the manager wants to happen of course. Unless you actually check some places out, see how they handle recycling and hit them with a hefty fine if they don't do it properly.
This is certainly needed for lithium and other rechargeable battery tech going forward.