For God’s sake’ stop dumping analog TVs, computers
Older analog televisions and computer monitors are being dumped so fast that waste management officials are pleading with city and county residents to store them for another six months in their garage or basement.
The Central Avenue recycling depot in Windsor is getting old televisions and monitors faster than it can truck them away, the Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority was told Tuesday.
“For God’s sake, hold on to them,” said recycling co-ordinator Cam Wright.
The authority will ban televisions, computers and other “electronic waste” of all kinds from the regional landfill Feb. 1, 2009, although they can still be dropped off at the recycling depots.
By April 1, 2009, a new provincial program called Ontario Electronic Stewardship will be underwriting the cost of recycling waste electronics. The authority will get $165 a tonne for everything it has stockpiled.
Authority general manager Todd Pepper said the big problem is storing the waste electronics until the provincial program kicks in. So residents are being asked to store their old TVs and computer monitors until April.
Right now, the authority has to pay 25 cents a pound for old televisions and $1.50 for each computer monitor hauled away by a London recycler.
For the last two years, the CAW Local 200 Computer for Kids program took all the authority’s old televisions and computers — culling out the good ones for low-income families.
But so much electronic junk is being dumped, the CAW told the authority last month it didn’t want to deal with it any longer.
Pepper said the authority will still try to pick out some of the better computers in the waste stream for the CAW’s program.
Authority chairperson Jo-Anne Gignac suggested searching for a temporary storage site for all the electronic waste to maximize the revenue it can get once the subsidy program starts.
If a storage site isn’t found, much of the electronic waste will go into the landfill, until the ban takes effect next February.
The dumping of older televisions is being driven by the approaching deadlines in the U.S. and Canada for the switch by broadcasters to all-digital signals. Unless already connected to cable or satellite systems, analog televisions would need a set-top converter box to receive the digital signals from broadcasters.
However Wright said it appears most consumers are going to dump their older televisions and computer monitors in favour of LCD or plasma screens that have dropped in price.
Wright said the “vast majority” of the televisions being dropped off are still in working condition.
The U.S. deadline for the switch to digital television is Feb. 17, 2009. The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission established a transition date of Aug. 31, 2011.
Most countries are making the transition to digital television between 2009 and 2012.
In the Windsor area, the fact there are so many signals from Detroit-area stations appears to be driving the switchover a little quicker.
Pepper said it would have helped the authority deal with the glut if the provincial recycling program had been ready to go in July when it was announced.
Pepper expects some of the larger Canadian retailers of televisions and computers to set up recycling programs of their own since they’ll also be able to tap into the recycling subsidies.
