Recycling lithium-ion batteries

On behalf of a friend...

"... have you ever found somewhere to send these batteries (eg from a laptop) for recycling. The net advice I can find, is contact your local authority (no facilities here, or in most places I don't think) or send back to the manufacturer (which might work as pressure if everybody did it, but I suspect us sending a single battery back will probably lead to it being dumped in the bin... which defeats the object)."

Clues/comments, anyone?