As far as the recycling cost for the old battery, my iMac tells me that 236 Swiss francs is almost $247 right now.
Those SF 236,-/$ 247,- US were the costs for the
new battery... the recycling fee were the SF 5,- in the line below that ;-)
If GE were to factor in the billions spent to clean up the Hudson River what would electrical products really cost?
What disturbs me in this eco-trend is that the lifetime and durability, hence the quality of stater batteries (and many other products!) has
significantly decreased in the past 10~15 years...
Like the OEM battery of my '96 Toyota which flawlessly serviced me for 10 years, whilst whatever (brand/quality) battery I got for it in the recent past/today, is done every 2~3 years...
Or the Yuasa for my 1100 back in the 90ies, lasting 5~7 years... now their done in like 3 years, and when choosing a 3rd party vendor like Banner or Varta for 1/3rd of the price, I'll even only see about 1 year lifetime...
When inquired they try to excuse that with harsh environmental laws forcing them to use other, less harmful materials, thus today's stuff has different specs...
But I sense this is only a trick to triple/quadruple their turnover... the consumer is the idiot who has to buy new stuff more frequently... considering the by this increased production volumes (thus boosted pollution and waist, mostly "outsourced" into 3rd and 4th world countries, where something like "environmental protection" doesn't exists anyway), is the "advertised" benefit for nature/environment simply nil and void...
So its all about the money...