Toxic Waste Products Creating Problems for Recyclers Across the U.S.

Recycling has always been found helpful against global warming. However, with the commodities being priced lower than before, electronic recyclers around the world is experiencing some tough times. One of the major problems they face is how to get rid of toxic materials from old television sets.

NBC News reported that because of this problem caused some e-recycling companies to improperly disposal of their garbage. Just last year, a company in Kentucky was caught burying old TVs and other electronic devices dumping in a deep hole in a field. Everybody knows this is not good for the environment since these devices contain toxic substances like lead, mercury, beryllium and cadmium.

"We want to promote recycling the best we can," James Young, executive director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority in West Virginia, told NBC News. "But when it becomes such a burden, we can't expect municipalities to foot the bill."

According to San Francisco Suntimes, companies that used to recycle televisions for free, including Best Buy, started charging customers to move them away. Since these products contain harmful substances, recycling them comes with a price even when commodities are high.

An example is Legacy's TV with bulky and heavy cathode ray tubes (CRTs) which pose a problem. In the past, their glass tubes, which normally contain 6 pounds of lead, could be melted down to make new CRTs. However, more and more people are doing away with CRT sets and prefer LED and plasma TV, which don't have lead in them. This simply means that there is a very weak demand for lead-filled glass. Low prices for commodities like gold and copper also make stripping the old sets for raw materials useless.

According to a survey from the Electronics Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse (ERCC), a pro-recycling nonprofit organization, in 2015, Americans had about 5 billion pounds worth of CRT TVs in their homes. "It's a long-lasting technology," said Jason Linnell, executive director of the ERCC. Not only can CRT TVs last for 20 to 30 years, they are also extremely heavy, so people tend to procrastinate when it comes to getting rid of them.