Environmental protection department: Mercury-free alkaline dry batteries need not be recycled

It is understood that the person in charge of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Hefei City said that mercury-free alkaline dry batteries do not need to be recycled, while lithium batteries or nickel-metal hydride, nickel-cadmium batteries, and batteries need special recycling.
Batteries that are often said to "contaminate a large area of land" actually refer to disposable alkaline dry batteries that previously contained heavy metal mercury. With the improvement of technology, the alkaline batteries currently sold in China have reached the mercury-free level. At present, most of the batteries used by citizens are mercury-free alkaline batteries. From the perspective of environmental protection, these batteries can be disposed of with daily waste and do not pose a harm to the environment. Therefore, environmental protection departments no longer advocate centralized recycling of used batteries in the hands of ordinary people.
However, for some rare battery types, such as mobile phone batteries, rechargeable batteries, accumulators, and batteries (bottles) for automobiles and electric vehicles, they are different from the alkaline batteries commonly used by ordinary people. If these batteries are discarded, they will pollute the environment, Special recycling.