Thanks to the man around my house, I haven't had to worry about my car battery since I was a teenager with my first car in high school.

I remember my parents telling me that if I took my old battery into the store to get my new one the staff would take it off my hands and even give me a discount. That's the extent of my knowledge of car batteries.

So I was pretty impressed to hear that Orscheln Farm & Home collected 3.7 million pounds of batteries to be recycled into new batteries. The company held their first battery exchange recently at all 152 Orschelin locations in nine states.

The response was so overwhelming that Orschelin is hosting another exchange on March 28 and 29 in conjunction with its automotive check up. Customers can bring any two automotive, marine, farm, truck or four lawn and garden batteries in for recycling and receive a six dollar gift card in exchange. That's a lot better than the discount I got in high school, plus the manufacturer that collects the old batteries uses 100 percent of the materials so nothing goes to waste. How's that for recycling?

For more information about the battery exchange contact the St. Joseph Orscheln at 238-0711 or stop by the store at 5326 Lake Avenue.