disposing of things

[arethinn]

A while back I asked if anyone knew of a way to get rid of a lot of VHS tapes without just throwing them out. I've had a bit success with azraelgrrl's suggestion to Freecycle them (someone came and picked up about 20-25% of them; I'm waiting on another person to come tomorrow), but not only do I have a lot of tapes still left, I have a lot of other junk that I really hate to throw out, but is really no longer usable, and I just don't know what to do with it. For example:

• Various broken equipment, including a videotape rewinder, a clock, and a rather heavy-duty metal hole-punch that just happes to be irrevocably jammed (at least to our expertise in fixing)
• Assorted no-longer-needed audiotapes, which are even less valuable than videotapes
• Back halves of jewel cases whose front halves have been cannibalized to repair broken ones on checkout items (I hate throwing away even the broken front halves, FWIW)

I guess what it boils down to is that I really hate discarding non-biodegradable stuff, but I can't think what else to do with most of it. Argh.

Comments

[johnnybrainwash.livejournal.com]

There's some place in Jersey that will recycle those jewel cases. But the cost in fuel and other resources for shipping them out probably outweighs the benefits of recycling them.

As a former treehugger, I used to live in a house where we accumulated great piles of stuff we couldn't use, but didn't want to throw out. We finally came to the conclusion, however, that we weren't helping anyone by displacing the landfill into our kitchen drawers or under the back porch.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I know there are some species of bacteria that can eat petroleum products and some kinds of plastics, and with thin plastics the sun does break things down eventually (though not well if they're buried in the layers of a landfill), but I worry about the harder clear and black plastics that we have laying around here.

Someone invent a recycled paper audio-video recording medium, yeah? (Actually recycling of the plastic is what I'd most like to do, but can't find a way to do it my small-potatoes self.)

[johnnybrainwash.livejournal.com]

Just send 'em all to the dump. One of these days, the cost of recycling will come down and the cost of petroleum products will go up, and someone will find a lucrative business in quarrying the landfills.

Or, ya know, civilization could collapse first. Whatever.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I liked that machine that could basically recycle anything, spat out the minerals and turned the plastic into some kind of organic goo or something...