Every other week, the city of Philadelphia collects recycling material from the streets. Recycling is a good thing, but what bothers me is that the city does not recycle everything, at least “plastic” is not on the list. It seems to be a natural idea to recycle plastic; at least, my guests usually throw their empty spring water bottles in my blue recycle container, and my husband and I have to pick them out and throw them in the trash bin which makes us feel guilty.

Another source of sin is throwing away batteries. I am educated to recycle batteries since I was a kid. The reason to recycle batteries is simple: batteries contain heavy metals, which would pollute the soil and water if treated as land fill. However, recently I learned that it is OKAY not to recycle non-rechargeable batteries, and efforts have been made to recycle rechargeable batteries.

Let me quote a paragraph from an article “Assault with Batteries: Charging toward a greener future” in the latest AMC Outdoors Magazine. The author Jim Motavalli wrote, “Following the Battery Act of 1996, most batteries no longer contain significant amounts of the heavy metal mercury, but rechargeable batteries still contain other toxic substances.” Also the website of Streets Philadelphia seems to backup this idea, “Note: household batteries size D, C, AA, AAA and 9 volt are not considered hazardous.”

It seems that I could feel relieved to drop those non-rechargeable batteries now, but how come in my country Taiwan, the government still pushes very hard to recycle all kinds of batteries? I learned from the news (for example) that in Taiwan we have not passed any strict law such as the Battery Act, therefore lots of battery manufacturers sell those batteries which are rejected in Europe and the States.

Lots of Asian countries have become the paradise of evil industry that pollutes the environment. However, there is no way to separate lands if they are under the same sky, so who will pay?