As the February 17th deadline for the digital TV conversion looms, more people are starting to wonder what can be done with all of the televisions that will become obsolete. State and local governments have been concerned about old TVs piling up in landfills since the switch was first announced, and some have developed special recycling programs to handle the problem.
Some states are charging for the privilege to recycle your old TV, however, making it an unpopular option – and many are seeing increases in illegal TV dumping. It’s illegal in 11 states to dispose of televisions in landfills due to hazardous substances contained within them as well as their heavy weight.
The government is offering coupons worth $40 toward the cost of a DTV conversion box that will keep old analog televisions working after the switch, but they’re starting to run out. There are also some reported problems with the conversion boxes, since various broadcasters present programs in different aspect ratios and some programs appear double-letterboxed, cropped into a 13” picture on a 17” television. All of this makes it likely that many people will choose to upgrade their televisions rather than use the conversion box.
Chicago’s The Week Behind explains the problem:
Bart Forbes, a spokesman for the U.S. Commerce Department, admits the DTV conversion kit is a stopgap measure, and he points out the coupons are not a magic bullet. The coupons were aimed at preventing poor, rural and older citizens from losing their TV signals entirely. They were not intended to let viewers replicate the HDTV experience.
As it stands now, only 18% of discarded TVs ever reach a recycler. The vast majority of these (about 80%) wind up being shipped overseas to Asia, South America and other developing countries for resale or materials recovery.
Inside the United States, the EPA estimates only two percent (that’s less than 100,000 TVs) are broken down in “glass to glass” recycling plants while another 16 percent go to smelters for lead recovery or recycling companies that cull out the plastic and metal parts.
Since we’ve learned that we can’t necessarily rely on recycling programs to actually dispose of electronic waste safely and ethically, many people with analog televisions are unsure of what to do.
You can find out what your state’s laws are and whether recycling programs are available locally at MyGreenElectronics.com, a site run by the environmental affairs division of the Consumer Electronics Association. If you can’t find recycling options, hang on to your television until new laws and government oversight ensure that it can be safely recycled.
Link [The Week Behind]
Photo credit: Flickr user luisvilla
