[kxyvr]

I don't think it's this way everywhere, but I do worry that many of these store disposal options may not work particularly well. A few weeks ago, I had an argument with an employee at Home Depot. I was looking for the battery disposal area and the employee wanted to see what I wanted to deposit. I had a small CR2032 lithium and was told that they don't do the flat ones. That was news to me and my best guess was that the employee was confused about the kind of battery because many of the small batteries are alkaline, which my city has us dispose in the trash. Anyway, eventually management got involved and I was told to just deposit it because they'll throw it away later. After I deposited the battery, the employee opened the box in order to fish it out and the box was full of trash. At best, people were putting large numbers of AAA, AA, C, and D batteries in grocery bags and just throwing them in. Frankly, I think a good amount of it was just plain garbage. The point is that I think that particular Home Depot just takes most of what is in the battery disposal box and just puts it into the trash. I don't think they bother to identify the kinds of batteries in there and the employees I interacted with could not correctly identify battery type.

I do believe strongly in battery and electronic disposal. However, I'm not convinced that all disposal places are created equal. In my area, I will no longer use the hardware stores.