Blame it on Johnson Controls, not Interstate. Interstate is just a distributor of batteries. There aren't many battery mfgs in the US and one company rebuilds batteries ans sells them. Every part of a battery is recyclable. Gopher Resource Tampa Battery is a huge one and they melt everything down and make a new battery. Gopher Resource Tampa is expected to take in 60,000 spent batteries a day and put out 30 to 50 tons of completely repurposed materials every 24 hours. If you are so disgusted with Interstate, buy a Concorde Battery Corporation aircraft battery and it should last three years.