Not only that, but disposal is painful. In my city i have to drive to the disposal centre 30-45 mins away on a specific day of the month.
So yeah, naturally people don’t do that.
So yeah, naturally people don’t do that.
With scrap batteries being worth 5-50 cents per pound it would be worth just sticking a handful of these, but labeled as "used battery drop off point" in high visibility areas. It won't stop people from maliciously throwing away batteries but would remove the lazy factor.
As for scrap batteries being tossed into a bin at a mall, I'm not seeing that end well. It is more or less trivial to look up recycle facilities in your area and take stuff to the appropriate drop-off. Personally, I take eWaste into Best Buy or Staples, and my own city government runs a large recycling center that will take almost anything.
It’s far from trivial if you don’t own a car, which is probably part of the problem in NYC.