Consumer behavior and perspectives concerning spent household battery collection and recycling in China: a case study

•Chinese consumers have high awareness of problems related to spent batteries.•Chinese residents think government ranks first in spent battery management.•Lack of battery collection facilities mostly hinders collection.•Collection rates can be increased by policy changes and by providing collection facilities.•Additional research on material's recovery from spent batteries is needed.

Currently, the majority of spent batteries are not recycled but become part of the household waste in many countries, especially in China which is the largest producer and consumer of batteries. This is due to many reasons, including the lack of governmental policies to encourage and facilitate battery return and recycling. In that context this research was designed to investigate the attitudes and behaviors of Chinese consumers with regard to collection and recycling of spent batteries.The survey results were based upon the analyses of 1874 valid questionnaires. The key reason for the failure of return of spent batteries for recycling was the lack of conveniently located spent battery collection sites. Low awareness of battery management policies revealed that the residents did not have adequate information. The consumers were convinced that government is responsible for and should play a vital role in the proper management of spent batteries. The respondents favored using curbside recycling bins for depositing their spent batteries. The questionnaire results revealed that residents would pay a deposit to be 15.6% and 13.6% of the sale price of a battery respectively for deposit refund system and subsidy for spent battery collection and recycling respectively.In conclusion, policies on spent battery collection and recycling should be developed and implemented in China. The respondents provided the following insights for ways to dramatically increase spent battery collection and recycling by underscoring that governments: a. Are responsible for developing the policies, strategies to encourage all residents to return their spent batteries; b. Are responsible for ensuring that conveniently located collection facilities are widely available for citizen deposits of spent batteries; c. Should provide expanded information and education about risk reduction benefits of proper spent battery collection and recycling; d. Should support research on the production of new battery recycling technologies.