The Digital Conversion Will Send Thousands of Useless TVs to Landfills
January 15, 2009 · Print This Article
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
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My husband requested our coupons for converter boxes just before they announced the funds shortage. I am hopefull we get the coupons. We simply do not have money for a new TV.
We have two TVs which date from our college years (late 1980s). Both Sonys. They work fine. We don’t have cable – never have. We use them for watching the news/weather when needed or (mostly) to play Wii or watch a DVD. Since the TVs we have work fine (and both are from the late 1980s-20 years or older) I am outraged at being forced to buy something new to replace them. This is not only from an economic point, but from an environmental concern.
If the converter boxes do not work, we will be without TV. I simply will not be forced into consuming.
Beware of junk TV’s on the market that are digital. I purchased an APEX digital TV in August 2008 for $250 and it now has no picture and it’s only May 2009.
The HDTV craze unfortunately, has created manufactures who are willing to sell you junk electronics that will not last and may if people do not dispose of them properly in landfills.
I wish there was a website to report those manufactures who’s products fail in an unreasonable time. I did find many,many complaints on the web about Apex TV’s. Their defectiveness goes back to 2007 and to more than just one model.
Apex should be reported because their many defective products will be thrown away. Consumers need to be warned.