Recycling CDs

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:35 am

Not sure if I'm posting this in the right forum but, are there any environmentally friendly ways to dispose of old CDs?

I thought there would be facilities that would take them in to recycle or something, but the information I get from searching the web seems pretty outdated.

I've been stashing all my old CDs in empty spindles for years now because I have no idea if they're safe to put them in household recycling collections and don't want to dump them into the garbage if there is a better way to get rid of them.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:49 pm

Well, there are the usual kind of re-uses: clocks, shiny hanging things that move and so on. Those aren't good solutions for more than a dozen disks or so, though.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:54 pm

Here's a few options from google:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/20 ... 0_cds.html

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/furniture/re ... 308488.php

http://www.eagle-wing.net/FunStuff/Good ... CD02.shtml

If you throw them out/send them for recycling better make sure they aren't readable first.

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:03 am

As amusing as those solutions are, I was looking for a more practical way to dispose of these cds. I have several spindles of driver CDs, failed burn CDs, nothing on these CD's are sensitive data.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that there's really nothing much I can do but just chuck these into the landfill.

Seems I usually get the same responses when asking this same question elsewhere.

Ah wells, can't say I didn't try.

AuraAllan · Post by **AuraAllan** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:22 am

Have you tried asking at a recycling center?

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:36 pm

I checked the list of valid recyclable items for the municipal recycling center and CD's were never listed, but I'll try calling anyway, such a simple thing and I overlooked it.

Thanks.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 12:43 am

Google 'recycling cd'... there's over 2,000,000 hits. Should find something close if you add your state or region to the query.

Pete

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:59 am

Typically different raw materials combined together are not recycled. For a long magazines were not; high clay content. Now they seem to be more processed, or at least accepted for processing, whatever that may be.

Juice boxes on the other hand are pretty much a 1 use item.

Charuto · Post by **Charuto** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:59 am

Actually, I was looking for something similar a few hours ago (vhs tapes). After sifting through so many replies of people suggesting the asker to make some avant-garde art/furniture, I came across this:

http://www.greendisk.com/

If you don't mind paying a processing fee + shipping. Other than them, nobody specifically states that they accept old cds, disks, vhs, other assorted media. It's pretty costly depending on how much you have to ship. I'm debating it.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:39 am

I came across a link to these folks today on a website and though it might be sueful to add to the thread.

http://www.cdrecyclingcenter.com/

buddhafest · Post by **buddhafest** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:45 am

To those that are in Canada, I just found that Best Buy Canada accepts DVDs and CDs for recycling, among several other items.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/marketing/recycli ... 5Fcookie=1

This is stated from their site

"Best Buy, through a partnership with Greentec, is thrilled to be a destination for consumers looking for a recycling alternative for batteries, ink cartridges, CDs and a number of portable electronics such as cell phones and MP3 players. Please visit a Best Buy near you and simply drop your item into our recycling station."

At least I now have a nearby location to drop off my spindles of CDs