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Washington: A stack of old television sets towered above Tim Webster as he put his own dust-covered, 20-year-old set onto the heap. He had replaced it with a new flat-screen television and decided it was time to part with his old living-room companion.
"We were just waiting to see if this one had any use and, it turns out, it really doesn't," said Webster, who lives in Arlington, Virginia. "It was time to move on."
Recycling centres and landfills across the US are preparing for a surge of unwanted sets in coming months. Next February, most TV broadcasts will be available only in digital form. As a result, sets that rely on antennas to receive over-the-air analogue signals will no longer work on their own. At the same time, prices of digital TV sets continue to drop, luring consumers to upgrade.
"I think a lot of people are going to use the digital switch as a reason to buy a new TV," said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which runs a campaign urging electronics manufacturers to collect old TV sets from consumers and recycle them for free. "The question is what happens to all the TVs people are getting rid of."
Last year, about 68 million TVs were thrown out, given away or recycled, according to the Consumer Electronics Association's estimates. That number could grow this year: About 14 million households rely on over-the-air broadcasts, according to the Nielsen Co.
Webster said he considered getting a converter box for his old TV but decided to spring for a digital set because the prices have become more affordable.
He was one of hundreds of Arlington residents who dropped off a total of 16,500 pounds of discarded TVs for recycling on April 19 at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. The county, which holds recycling events twice a year to collect electronics, household hazardous waste and other hard-to-dispose-of items, took in a record number of TVs to be dismantled and recycled.
Toxic waste
Electronics pose environmental threats because they contain hazardous chemicals, including mercury in batteries, cadmium in displays and toxins in circuit boards. Old-style TVs and computer monitors with cathode ray tubes, or CRTs, contain between four and eight pounds of lead. Environmentalists say such substances can be harmful when buried in landfills, potentially leaching toxins into groundwater supplies.
Many municipalities have set up recycling sites and hold events specifically geared toward electronics, including cellphones, computers, stereos and VCRs. Bulky TVs are not always accepted, partly because they are more expensive to transport and recycle. Consumers often have to pay a fee of $10 to $50 to recycle a TV, which creates an economic incentive for them to toss it into the landfill.
Some regions are anticipating a 30 per cent increase in the number of TVs dropped off at recycling centres, according to Anne Reichman, programme director for Earth 911, an Arizona-based company that helps coordinate recycling efforts across the country.
"We're seeing retailers provide sales that will entice consumers to upgrade to a better, more energy- efficient, cooler TV," she said. "But we're not confident the old TVs aren't going to landfills."
An estimated 32 million new televisions are expected to enter US homes this year, while consumers expect to get rid of about 44 million, based on a survey of 1,000 people released last month by the Consumer Electronics Association. The survey indicated that most of those TVs will be sold, donated or recycled rather than thrown in the trash.
Shopping
A previous survey by the association showed that about 14 per cent of antenna-dependent households plan to buy a new digital TV before the transition occurs February 17, 2009. About 60 per cent of the 2,000 people surveyed said they intend to buy a converter box or subscribe to cable or satellite service to keep using their current TVs. A dozen states have set up recycling programmes for electronics, often requiring manufacturers to contribute to the recycling effort.
Some TV makers have started their own programmes to take back their brand's TVs and pay to have them safely recycled. Sony said it has collected 6 million pounds of electronics since its programme started in September. In response to various state laws, Panasonic, partnering with Toshiba and Sharp, has started holding collection events and last year recycled 3.4 million pounds of TVs.
Brent Young, director of business development for E-Tech Recycling, which has drop-off centres for electronics in Chantilly, Virginia, and Portland, Oregon, said he has seen the largest spike of TVs come in during public collections. He recently collected more than 2,500 pounds of TVs in three hours at an event near Portland.
Tim Felegie of Arlington couldn't wait till the year end. When he pulled up to the recycling event a week ago, his 20-year-old Sharp TV, complete with push buttons and faux wood, was in the passenger seat to be dropped off. Waiting in the car behind him was Mitt Mittendorff, who had bought a flat-screen and had hauled his old 31-inch TV to be recycled. "It's huge, and you have to hit it in the corner to make it work."
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