Recycle CRT

Recycle CRT: a reader asks…

I’ve used my county recycling center to recycle old computers, printers and such. Recently, they’ve started charging to recycle old-style CRT monitors and televisions. Is there a free way to recycle these?

Free recycling for such items is quickly disappearing. That’s because these old-style screens have hazardous materials in them (like lead), which must be carefully extracted before the rest of the device can be either broken up for parts, dropped into a landfill, or otherwise disposed of. Extracting the materials can be an expensive process, because you need skilled workers to safely disassemble the screen, break open the TV tube, and pull out the hazardous materials without causing harm to the environment.

I expect that as time goes on, the cost of recycling is going to increase, and either your county taxes will go up, or you’ll start seeing more charges for recycling. Being ‘green’ is often very expensive, and most times we don’t see the true cost of this. At some point, I hope to see more companies taking on recycling responsibility.

One nice example is the makers of Nespresso coffee-makers. Unlike the ubiquitous Keurig coffee-makers (with their non-recyclable K-cups in landfills everywhere), the coffee pods that Nespresso uses are all-aluminum, and they provide owners with bags so they can send back their used coffee pods to the company. The company then composts the used coffee, and recycles the aluminum to make new pods. Read more about their process here: https://www.nespresso.com/us/en/services#services-recycling.

Not to bad-mouth Keurig, they’ve recently started creating recyclable K-cups. The selection is limited right now, and Keurig won’t take your used K-cups back. Instead, they are making them out of a different, more recyclable type of plastic – recyclable polypropylene. That means that whatever your county does with recycling, those K-cups can go into the recycling bin instead of with your regular trash. Keurig says they’ll expand the selection of recyclable K-cups soon.