Why are taxes due on April 17 this year? I understand that we couldn’t get them mailed on April 15, a Sunday, but why isn’t Monday, April 16 the due date? Not that I’m complaining.

A quick call to the Northern California branch of the Internal Revenue Service was not my happiest task of the day, but believe me, I was on my best behavior. IRS spokesman Bill Steiner told me that the filing deadline is April 17 this year because April 16 is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia. There’s a long-held federal statute that holidays in D.C. have a nationwide impact on the filing date for taxes. He also pointed out that in California state taxes are due the same day, probably to keep it simple, especially since state taxes require some information from your federal return.

The next time the holiday will change the nation’s tax return deadline is 2011, according to the IRS.

Emancipation Day was enacted in 2004 to commemorate the day President Lincoln signed a bill freeing slaves in the district — April 16, 1862 — before slavery was abolished in the country as a whole on Jan. 1, 1863, by the Emancipation Proclamation, according to dc.gov and www.archives.gov.

How do you recycle ordinary household batteries (AAA, AA, C, etc.)? I thought it was against the law now to throw them away in the trash when they go dead, but what do you do with them? I stopped at my local recycling center, but they don’t take them; they said Radio Shack accepted them. I went to two Radio Shacks (one in Fairfield and one in Vallejo); the clerks at both stores said they accept rechargeable batteries, but not regular ones. Any help would be appreciated as old batteries are starting to pile up in the junk drawer in the kitchen.

There are batteries (and cotton balls soaked with nail polish remover, which also can’t be thrown away) piling up in my junk drawer, too. I haven’t made it down to the Napa-Vallejo Hazardous Waste Collection Facility yet. It’s open Fridays and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s at 889A Devlin Road, off of Highway 29 at South Kelly Road. The Radio Shacks in Napa (one in Silverado Plaza, one at 3016 Jefferson St.) also take non-rechargeable batteries — they said so when I called — and send them to the Hazardous Waste Collection Facility.

The Hazardous Waste Collection Facility accepts a wide variety of materials that are left over when working on your car, painting or cleaning your house or working on your backyard. It doesn’t, however, accept ammunition or radioactive or explosive materials.

It’s against the law to throw batteries and other “universal” waste in the trash, since the Universal Waste Rule went into effect in February 2006, according to Kevin Miller, Napa’s recycling manager. This kind of waste is called universal because it is present in nearly every household. Who doesn’t have a can of paint or oven cleaner lying around?

The point is that if you throw them into the regular trash they’ll be lying around in a landfill and could leak chemicals into the ground that can be a problem for a long time. Computer hard drives contain heavy metals, thermostats contain mercury, and batteries can leach chemicals into the groundwater.

What is Glad You Asked?

Glad You Asked answers the questions that are lingering around the junk drawer of your brain. So clean it up! Send those questions to me at jdecker@napanews.com or 256-2215.