Is there a good way to dispose of old alkaline batteries?

Most cities have a Hazardous Waste depot where containers of old batteries and old car batteries can be dropped off. Some even have a pick up service. Look in phone book under city services or on your cities website . The City of North Bay publishes a recycling calendar .

Tesco are now taking small batteries up to 'D' I believe. I have seen and used one in Tesco Extra Llansamlet.

You can take worn out batteries and energy efficient lightbulbs to IKEA - all locations have a recycling drop off. We keep ours in a container and make a trip when the container if full. Our kids love to empty the container into the IKEA recycling bins - and its a great way to teach recylcing.

I keep the used batteries hoping that one day the city will recycle them or at least seperate them from the regular garbage. I suggest you can check with your local electronic stores (Radio Shack, etc.) if they recycle them.

Properly made modern alkaline cells contain very small amounts of heavy metals. Panasonic quote 500ppm mercury by mass. Cells sold in Europe are often marked to indicate that they contain zero cadmium. In Norway we are no longer required to return used alkaline cells to the shop for disposal because they do not contain high levels of heavy metals.

yeah they are recycled b/c they contain toxic heavy metals that poison the environment..but since its not that common u have to find a battery recycling place..hope u find one!