SWACO Urges People to Recycle Old TVs

COLUMBUS, Ohio—With the switch to digital television, millions of analog TVs became useless without a converter box. So some landfill experts are expecting an influx of dead TVs this year.

The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) is urging people to recycle the TVs instead of trashing them. The old TVs take up large amounts of space and further limit the landfill’s life span. They can also leach hazardous materials into the ground and groundwater.

The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans tossed more than 20,000,000 TV sets in landfills in 2008. NBC 4 saw several at the Franklin County Landfill in Grove City today.

TV sets are manufactured with lead, mercury and cadmium as well as copper and precious metals. All of those materials can be recaptured and recycled. That keeps them out of the landfill and away from the water supply.

SWACO spokesperson John Remy says the Franklin County Landfill meets EPA standards and has several layers of protective liners to keep hazardous materials from leaching out.

“But you never want to take any chances,“ Remy says. “And so that’s another reason that we would prefer that those television sets don’t end up in the landfill.“

SWACO has a list of electronics recyclers who will take old TVs. Many of them charge a fee of $10 to $25 to cover the cost of labor. Each TV has to be torn apart, by hand, in order to salvage the recyclable materials inside.

Guy Wolfenbarger owns Ohio Waste Recycling. His company has just purchased new equipment that helps workers separate the leaded glass from regular glass in the TV tube. It also vacuums away the hazardous reflective powder from the inside of the glass.

Workers on a disassembly line use screwdrivers, drills and saws to take each set apart. The metal casing go in one bin, the copper wire in another and the plastic shells in another. They will all be recycled.

The tedious labor is why Wolfenbarger has to charge a fee. “At the end of the day, you’re not going to make money recycling TVs,“ he says. “It’s just part of recycling.“

Wolfenbarger says there will, eventually, be a rush of TVs to recycle. But he is not expecting it right away.

“People still have to get the idea, ‘I’ve got to get rid of this,‘“ he says. “We’re collectors. We put it in the garage or in the closet until we need that space and then we take it away.“

In the meantime, SWACO wants everyone to think about recycling. When it’s time to finally ditch that TV, don’t put it in the landfill.

“We’re throwing away a lot of resources,“ SWACO’s John Remy says. “It’s the same thing with television sets and other electronics.“

SWACO’s list of electronics recyclers is here: http://www.swaco.org/RecycleElectronics.aspx

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