Free Pallets of TVs

[Phil Nelson]

Reminds me of the last recyclling/haz-waste event in our town, which happens twice a year. It is illegal in the Seattle area to throw a TV, computer monitor, etc., out for the landfill. You have to pay $20 to dispose of the average TV, more for a big projection set, etc.

At the spot where I dropped off a computer monitor, they had stacks of 1980s/etc. TVs, some already stacked on pallets and shrink wrapped.

Some (maybe all) of this stuff gets shipped to "recyclers" in China, who are children wearing flip-flops, crouching in a smoking wasteland bashing things up with hammers. Metal is salvaged -- some of it anyway. The rest, probably including all plastic cases, is tossed into heaps and burned. I read a scary magazine article about this a while ago. Sounds more like an eco-disaster than true recycling.

Some European countries have a better scheme, which requires manufacturers to take back their old products for responsible recycling.

Phil Nelson