Sunday, January 25, 2009

VHS Tape Recycling

Like most people I know, I still have a collection of VHS tapes. And the only reason I've held onto these tapes is because there was really no place to dispose of them except for the landfill. And we all know that if they go in the landfill, they'll be there for ETERNITY! Yeah, there's not a whole lot in this world that Eternal Life will bring something positive to.

Thankfully, today I stumbled upon a company that will take care of my VHS Eternal Friends. GreenDisk will recycle just about any kind of Techno Waste, but the biggest help to all of us, since there are other means to dispose of TVs and Computers and such, is that they'll take in, and dispose of correctly, all forms of media from CDs to DVDs to VHS tapes. If you're lucky enough to have a drop box around you, then this is as easy as dropping the items in a box for someone to ship, however, if there's not a drop box around you, they also take items in your own box up to 30 lbs. The only negative is that you have to pay regular postage on top of their small intake fee. So I would consider just ordering the TechnoTrash official box which covers shipping in the cost as Postal Service costs can be pretty high if you have a lot of stuff to send.

It's so important these days that we think about what we are stuffing into our trash bins as much of this stuff will never break down. I am happy to see that there are companies out there trying to accommodate us with solutions to the problem. They may not be perfect solutions, but they are a start. Now the next step is to make sure we are all purchasing recycled products. Even if we are recycling, we Must do our part to make sure recycling stays a viable industry.

3 comments:

Melanie said...

What a coinkydink! Just this weekend I emptied out our VHS tapes and had to box them up because we're running out of room in our DVD cabinet! We've been slowly replacing our favorites with DVDs. The Denton State School takes donations of videos for their residents' viewing, but they have to be G-PG13 only.
http://www.dentonstateschool.org/index.php?id=13

Anonymous said...

Is there a drop box/location in DFW?

Unknown said...

sparkling, I just did a new search to see if anybody was recyling VHS locally. Unfortunately, I still can't get a straight answer. The closet I came was a posting that said Erecycler Services in Garland would destroy data tapes, so the assumption was they'd also destroy VHS tapes. Here's their web address: http://www.erecycler.net/services.htm

Alternatively, you can always donate VHS tapes to libraries or women's shelters. I don't know if homeless shelters will take them or not.