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Comment by cmurf | Hacker News Reader

In all the towns I've lived in, it's illegal to put fluorescent bulbs and lithium batteries in the trash. They're supposed to be disposed of as hazardous waste.

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It's not like they can really inspect the contents of your bin before the machinery dumps it all into the truck. You'd have to do something really dumb to get caught. Those rules really depend on most people not being dicks about it.

Most garbage collection in Australia has a camera to inspect bin contents and catch people abusing the recycling system.

It's been in place for a decade now.

https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-g...

That's interesting. The non-recyclable waste is normally packaged up into black bags here in the UK and it's often pretty noxious. They're not gonna slice them open so a camera can have a look, so people can put almost anything in them so long as it fits.

My batteries and bulbs are picked up together with the rest of my trash, I just put it in a little box hanging on the bin. There's no reason what so ever to not put them in the right place. So everyone does.

> In all the towns I've lived in, it's illegal to put [..] lithium batteries in the trash

That's not true anywhere in the US, for the primary cell LiFeS02 batteries (such as the Energizer L91). They are not considered hazardous waste and the suggested disposal route is your trash can.

You are probably thinking of lithium-polymer batteries, which are indeed hazardous waste (and cargo).

Most supermarkets where I live have a battery bin near the entrance, and I've seen many times various packs or even sealed lead acids crammed in.

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