Soda can deposits are far from universal an do not result in free money... they simply refund the deposit that was paid up.

But they do make sure more bottles amd cans get recycled. In practice it creates a whole ecosystem of people collecting amd cashing them in. If we didn't have the deposit, the government would have to pay for that cleanup

Batteries in Norway have a very high recycling rate and large batteries like car starter batteries attract a specific tax (miljø gebyr, environment charge) that assists in funding the recycling operations. Everyone who sells batteries has to be a member of an approved recycling group and be willing to accept for recycling batteries of the same general type even if they did not sell them. So you can dump your old phone batteries in a box at any supermarket.