Crowd at Office Max recycling event, but no TVs

Posted by Geeky Swedes on November 15th, 2008

People were dropping off hundreds of PCs at the Ballard Office Max’s “Recycle Your Old Electronics” event on Saturday.

But despite what the store told My Ballard Friday — and what TV news reported — Office Max says it is NOT accepting TVs, DVDs or VCRs. It’s only taking PC equipment like CPUs, monitors and printers.

A few people arrived with TVs and other non-PC electronics in hand, only to be turned away. Some just left them stacked in front of the store. While frustrating for some, others were happy to finally get rid of their old computers for free.

Tags: Ballard Facebook

lin

For a small fee, you can give your computers to re-pc. (www.repc.com) It's a really great business; we go there all the time. (I've got a network engineer in the family)

Newbie

Here is a great article tracking where our "recycled" computers end up.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-...

PCRecycler

The environmental cost for the improper disposal of electronics is astronomical. It is unaffordable; people have to dispose of their equipment in an environmentally responsible way. Go to www.pcrecycler.net to find out more

pioggia

hopefully they can be sent to some other country that can still use them rather than just becoming landfill...

aptgal

When the TV's go all digital there will be a Mount Rainier size pile of discarded TV's. Where will they put them all?

John

If anyone knows where I can take a DVD player that doesn't work (it was a cheap player and won't read DVDs anymore), please let me know.. much appreciated

(i know a few places where i can pay to take it... but anywhere that i could do it for free is my preference)

AkGru

For $40 you can take it to a few places. Bogus.

I dropped a monitor this morning at the Office Max thanks to this blog heads up.

Thanks!

elenchos

King County has a list of recyclers that take various electronics, including TVs:

http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/takeitbac...

Most charge a fee.

In the upper right is also a link about $40 coupons for a digital to analog converter so you don't have to get rid of your old TV. I don't see anything there about taking it for free.

This news release from Seattle Public Utilities says about the same thing, and doesn't mention taking your TV for free either:

http://www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/News/News...

Sven

The city of Seattle will be recycling TVs when the digital switch happens.

dan the man

BTW - if people missed this event and want to recycle their computers/peripherals, Interconnect in Wallingford (near Gasworks Park) is a great place to recycle computers/related items, often for free if they are recent/working:
http://www.interconnection.org/give.html

dan the man

I was trying to figure out where this event was (Office Max, Office Depot..so hard to tell them apart) and searched the web several times, finally your blog had the information! Thanks.