Batteries a stumbling block in challenge

Mathew Luxon and Waveney Warth of Christchurch are trying to live rubbish-free for a year. This is their weekly blog, also available at www.rubbishfreeyear.co.nz/PRIOR to starting our challenge, we went through the house identifying potential sources of landfill waste and, where possible, replaced items with more sustainable alternatives.
One area that received our attention was batteries.
Apparently, 15 billion batteries are discarded every year, translating into a column that would stretch to the moon and back - if we could build it, (www.thedailygreen.com).
So the alternative was to purchase a battery recharger (Trade Me for $20) and rechargeable batteries for the stereo remote and bike lights, the only batteries we use.
This all worked well until last week when Waveney's bike light was stolen off her bike, mounting and all.
She went and purchased a new light, which was packaging friendly.
But what she didn't realise was that it had two disposable batteries already in it.
Even buying recyclable batteries poses a problem as they all come in unwelcome un-recyclable packaging.
This story is not a "woe is me, look at how difficult it all is tale", rather it is an illustration of the vigilance required when purchasing seemingly benign products.
It is also a good plug for buying second-hand, where we would have been more aware if batteries were included.
Now that we have the disposable batteries we will use them, and if they run out they will be added to our rubbish bag.
To re-home them would be to distort the reality of the waste being produced from our household, as obviously they would still exist and end up at the landfill.