Recycling Articles : Recycling CDs

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CDs in the form of music albums, blank computer storage disks and DVD’s have taken over the market place in the past few years, replacing older means of data storage due to their ability to hold higher amounts of information and their portability. Despite the trend now towards MP3 players and ipods, CDs are still being sold in vast quantities worldwide and without being recycled could waste large amounts of space in landfills.

About 2,500 tonnes of CDs are being dumped every year and of course, over a few years, this begins to become a serious problem for our environment unless we figure out a sensible way to recycle them. There are incentives to recycle however, with recordable CDs (such as the latest top ten album in Woolworths) each possess aroud 20 milligrams of recoverable gold within them. Those companies who can cost effectively repossess this gold could make a lot of money.

Other companies grind down the CDs in order to make an “injection molding polycarbonate” which is, apparently, useful for various things such as lenses for traffic lights.

Perhaps this is why there are now a number of recyclers and reprocessors in the UK who will accept used CDs. A quick online search should unearth quite a few of these businesses. Some of them operate collection services and sometimes individuals can send small numbers of CDs to the companies themselves by post.

Obviously, aside from actually recycling the CDs, the other usual methods of reusing and giving away apply here. Donating your CD music collection to a local charity shop could help raise funds for the charity whilst keeping the CD in use and preventing it from becoming landfill waste. There are also many websites dedicated to reusing CDs for art projects and improvised pieces of furniture. Get creative! Remember that anything to save CDs from a landfill is a positive action.

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