Where TV's get recycled and sent to China

[julianburke]

Well folks, I have talked about where your old TV's go and you wanted to see a "collection" so here are the pictures! About 5000+ SF of them, will be broken down to plastic, glass, copper and boards and sent to China. All kinds and models but I look for the rare ones. RCA, Philips and so on! Tractor trailer loads of computers and monitors go through here weekly. Many still work if not broken from being tossed in the palletainer. I look for special ones but only found a 4 tube Zenith chassis but it was stripped and had been left out in the weather.


http://www.geocities.com/julianburke/DanRecyl1.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/julianburke/DanRecyl2.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/julianburke/DanRecyl3.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/julianburke/DanRecyl4.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/julianburke/DanRecyl5.JPG

[kx250rider]

Very sad to see that waste. I am also startled to see that '50 Philco roundie B&W in there... You'd think they would have tried to separate it and sell it.

Charles

[similost]

I gotta ask this...

After all the reading I do here about how everyone is so upset to see old TVs either thrown out, or trashed or what ever, Why this mentality?

I mean.. the old sets that a few of you around here do save and repair are cool, BUT, very few people have the ability or talent to save them. Yes, they could send them out, and have them repaired, but finding a person good enough to do it is getting harder to find, and the cost to have it repaired is even worse a lot of times than buying a new set, with much better technology, and creature features...

Why does everyone call this waste, or get mad when something is thrown out or repurposed, especially when I see these same people say it is too far, or they have too many, or they don't have the time, or don't have the money?

Why get all worked up over something that was usually made in masses, and finally lived out it's useful life?

I just don't get it... It's only an inantimate object, and usually not worth the effort...

(yes, I know there is a very small percentage of some real obscure TVs that are worth the effort, but most of what I see everyone getitng upset about around here is common old stuff..)

But why? Life is too short.. so many other important things to fret over.. At least these TV's are getting recycled, instead of filling up another dump...

[Arkay]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

Very sad to see that waste. I am also startled to see that '50 Philco roundie B&W in there... You'd think they would have tried to separate it and sell it.

Charles

Nope, too much hassle for the nature of the business they are in... Although some of that stuff has been sorted out, when some of those containers were --for reasons I won't go into-- diverted to, or passed through, Hong Kong. Americans (and Japanese, too, along with local HongKongers) throw out some really nice stuff, along with all that junk! I know that from personal experience.

Actually, I've spoken about the warehouses I "hunt" in more than once here. They are filled with stuff just like that, except the stuff is usually piled up in stacks, instead of in boxes. Sometimes the boomboxes get put in cartons like that, though, just to keep them from spilling all over the place. What doesn't get bought for export (to countries in Africa, Afghanistan, etc...) ends up going to the same recycling places in China that those TVs are heading for... to be busted up and separated out into re-usable parts and raw materials for recycling.

For the most part, it is a good thing. What would otherwise be toxic waste at least ends up getting partly recycled. Good for the environment, economically sensible, etc... The sad thing is just that not ALL of the stuff that gets recycled should be. Some of it is better-quality, collectible and worth saving. It just isn't practical for the people doing the business on that scale, at that end of the market, to go through and hand-pick the ones worth saving.

The downside to the whole thing is that the villages where the recycling is done have high mortality rates, more cancer, higher sterility and more birth defects when children are born, etc... due to all the pollutants in the gear, and little or no safety precautions. I'm not sure if it is better to have that happening to a relative few in concentrated locations, or spread around where it might not be so toxic, but more people might be affected.

If you can get access to one of those places and convince the people to let you cherry-pick (PAY for the things, of course!), you'll get some real bargains. But you'll have to pick through lots of rubbish to get them.

The world doesn't need to keep piling up more and more stuff that few people want any longer. It makes more sense to recycle things... but WHAT and HOW MUCH should be recycled, and what (and how much) should be conserved and kept in service, is open to debate. It seems a terrific waste to see fine old high-quality craftsmanship, that with minor repair holds its own (and then some) against modern stuff, wasted. But we don't need thousands and thousands of units of BPC piled up.

One real problem is that different people have different types and levels of understanding and appreciation for things. "One man's trash is another man's treasure" isn't just a saying... it's a truth!

The other problem is the challenge of putting into place an efficient system for economically sorting out the should-be-kept things from the let's-recycle things. Sad to say this, but so far, eBay is probably the best mechanism yet invented for that...

[similost]

Here's an interesting video about how this stuff is recycled once it get's to China..

http://www.china-pix.com/multimedia/guiyu/

(be patient, takes a few to load...)

[eberts]

I would think the Chinese would have some common sense when recycling, why poison your own water supply ?
They need to be neater and stop dropping stuff in the river and well.
Maybe they are at a point since there are a billion of them, they think of themselves as drones and are expendable ?
My friend was in China, he sent me some photos of their public toilets near some huge factory areas, you don't want to see them.
Imagine your toilet plugged up for 5 years and everyone kept using it, no one cleaned it up, that's what it looks like only worse.

[Arkay]

Originally Posted by eberts

I would think the Chinese would have some common sense when recycling, why poison your own water supply ?
They need to be neater and stop dropping stuff in the river and well.
Maybe they are at a point since there are a billion of them, they think of themselves as drones and are expendable ?
My friend was in China, he sent me some photos of their public toilets near some huge factory areas, you don't want to see them.
Imagine your toilet plugged up for 5 years and everyone kept using it, no one cleaned it up, that's what it looks like only worse.

I saw one exactly like that... in Mexico, along the Gulf of Baja,near the beach. Just the memory of it, years later,still makes me want to I don't understand how people could keep on using it, it was so disgusting. I couldn't get close enough to use it!

[Captain Video]

Seeing that 1950 B/W Philco roundie on the recicling pile... broke my heart.

I don't give a damm about 1980's and specially 1990's junk, but those older and beautiful 1950's sets... they don't need to send that to China!!! Send it to Southern Brazil, to my house, where they will be properly loved and cared!!!

[julianburke]

I hate to see it go llike that too. I have one just like it in mint condition and it was the same set our family bought new. If anyone wants that set, I will go and rescue it but I am out of room. Anyone??

[wa2ise]

defective posting removed... Mis-remembered what someone mentioned, thus this post became not sensible...