Don't just throw it away! Please dispose of your old TV's (& other consumer electronics) responsibly

[ddeclue]

Analog TV service is scheduled to end in February of this year and many of us have been or will be buying new TV's.

One nice environmental benefit of the new TV's is that they use far less electricity than the old CRT analog sets.

Another is that they are made of environmentally friendlier materials.

Consider that a 31 inch CRT TV from the 1990's weighed on average over 100 pounds and that a large portion of that was the lead shielding surrounding the tube to protect you from the x-rays it generated. If ten million such TV's get junked this year that would be upwards of 600 million pounds or 300,000 tons of lead that needs to be disposed of safely so that it does not end up in our drinking water.

Please be sure to dispose of your old TV's, computer monitors and other electronics responsibly - some places like Office Depot and Best Buy will accept certain kinds of consumer electronics for proper recycling.

Some items you should contact your local landfill about proper disposition. Many consumer electronics items contain toxic heavy metals like lead, nickel, copper, mercury and other toxic materials like phosphorus or poly chlorinated biphenyls (PCB's) which do not belong in an ordinary residential waste landfill. Often they will conduct special recycling drives to collect these materials on a specified day of the month or annually or you can find places on-line that specialize in recycling your consumer electronics in an environmentally friendly way.

[rvablue]

1. It's actually kind of hard to do

Did you see the 60 minutes that was on a month or two ago about a place in China where they dissect old electronics and the whole place is filled with heavy metal pollution, etc.

It was like something out of Mad Max.

By my point in bringing this up, is that the correspondent (guy with gray hair, tan) traced the stuff back to the US and it turns out it was collected by a "socially responsible" company -- or so they advertised -- but then took all of the stuff, put it in a shipping container and sent it over to China (which I think is actually illegal, but people are doing it)

Anyway, the intention of your post is a good one. And I mean no snark whatsoever. Just adding this into the discussion because doing so might be easier said than done.

Then again, there's no hurt in trying to.

[high density]

6. Yeah that was something else

Here's the 60 Minutes Story on "recycled" e-waste that ends up in a dump heap over in China: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml

[rvablue]

8. Thank you, high density, should have taken the time myself to find the link!

:hi:

[JayMusgrove]

2. We have to pay $25 to dispose of every TV or Computer monitor in my town.

I gave away my old working monitor to my nephew, just to save myself money.

I have a bogus broken TV, and have to wait until spring for the next collection of TV's.

My town has made it hard NOT to put my old TV in the woods somewhere tomorrow and pay nothing. Of course I won't do that.

[ZombieHorde]

7. That is a major problem with some environmental laws.

[SoCalDem]

3. The sad thing is this.. No matter how responsibly YOU

dispose of these things, they most likely still end up in that horrific place in China where they are stripped bare-handed for their toxic parts & pieces..

60 Minutes did a piece on this a while back, and some guy in the Bay area was running a "green disposal" service, but was really just selling the stuff to China, and pocketing large sums of money for himself..

[JayMusgrove]

4. Well there is a place in Nashua NH that does a good job

of breaking down all this stuff, but they charge us...

We have to pay them to do the right thing, but they get silver, lead gold, and all sorts of other stuff to sell back into the market.

And they don't pollute, they don't endanger themselves, they just charge.

[ramblin_dave]

5. New TVs use more power than older sets

According to the following article...

link

LCD -- liquid crystal display -- sets use 43 percent more electricity, on average, than conventional tube TVs. And plasma TVs use more than three times as much power as old sets.

[amborin]

9. LA's collection center open every Friday....also, pls drink only SHADE COFFEE