Impact of household batteries in landfills

Heavy metals are present at different levels and concentrations in all the household dry batteries. The related environmental hazard is well known. The heavy metals are toxic and thus liable to produce serious problems for the health of the population and for the maintenance of the biosphere. Therefore, there has been recently an increasing concern on the risk associated with uncontrolled disposal of exhausted dry batteries. In this paper, we report on the efforts in progress in Italy for collecting spent batteries, as well as the most suitable strategies which can be followed to assure their safe disposal.