Digital TV transition could mean landfill pile-up | Unit 2 | CW2 Colorado

UNIT2 CONSUMER ALERT

Digital TV transition could mean landfill pile-up

Recycle that old TV

by Dave Young, News2

February 4, 2008

DENVER (KWGN) — Chances are you've alreday got one collecting dust somewhere--an old TV.

One Denver company wants to become the leader in a national TV recycling movement.

Most recyclers consider them a costly waste of time, so many simply won't accept them.

To extract the valuable metals and other materials inside old TVs requires too many third parties, making them little more than an environmental time bomb destined for the landfill.

"This, in our industry, is the hardest thing for us to deal with," said Steve Fuelberth of Denver's Luminous Electronics Recycling.

And now, as millions of TV viewers adapt to new digital technology literally tens of millions of old analog TVs will be entering America's waste stream.

"And there's still literally mountains of this stuff around that's still just waiting to be handled," Fuelberth pointed out.

Each of these old TVs contains a cathode ray tube, or CRT, which alone contains four to eight pounds of lead as well as cadmium, mercury, and other dangerous chemicals.

"We don't want this stuff to become a hazard," said Fuelberth, a strong advocate for environmental policy on ewaste.

He showed me where he plans to become the first of only two or three companies in the nation to extract and recycle materials from old TVs, all under one roof, using new technology from Europe.

"Up until now this market there really was no option to deal with these tubes," he said.

Many recyclers simply sell them to companies overseas, where they're dismantled with nothing to protect workers or the environment.

"The leaded glass, we don't want that getting into the landfill," said Fuelberth, "Because that could cause problems with our drinking water."

But tens of millions of tons of discarded TVs have already ended up in landfills.

While many states have banned CRTs from landfills, Colorado is not one of them, although the state does encourage recycling.

Colorado does require corporate electronic waste to be treated as hazardous material, so it's cheaper for companies to recycle it.

But Fuelberth wants to establish recycling programs for individuals, to encourage families not to throw out old TVs.

"Let's get them out of the households," Fuelberth said. "Now, we're able to consolidate into a single location where we can now handle these things efficiently to try to keep the cost of handling these things down."

A few TV manufacturers have started programs to encourage recycling, but critics say they need to take more financial responsibility, to make that happen.