Hybrid vehicle batteries will most likely be recycled 99.99995% of the time because the work would be done by qualified technicians. However, I can only imagine the damage to the environment that is being (has been done) by the Billions of alkaline, mercury, lead/acid, etc batteries that end up in land fills across the planet that were dumped there by uninformed consumers..There's a 99.999975% chance that the decision was motivated by some "well funded" lobbyists... I wish they would just keep those lobbies locked....