No longer completely free. They charged me $25 to take an old 15 inch CRT monitor. I told them I would pay it as I would be reimbursed from client but they were now on my s-list for buying new stuff from them. Neighbor said he had taken a huge CRT along with some other stuff to the dump in his pick-up and they only charged him $25 for the lot. He said they did separate recyclables but TV's just went into the general trash pile.
I took a 10 year old printer last week to Best Buy and they accepted with no questions asked. Also, our local dump has a 'mini' dump on my side of town that will take electronics, paint, appliances, furniture, etc. with no charge either.
It's a State by State (and possibly local law) deal.
In some areas the dropoff is a complete "freebie", in others some stuff is free, others are charged for, in some you pay $25 but get a $25 coupon...
best buy only limits tvs, to drop off a tv for free you must buy a tv.......
Where I live in Monmouth County NJ, we have a county recycling facility which accepts electronic stuff (TV, Computers, etc) with no dropoff charge. A few towns also have electronic drop off stations (no charge) so i don't need Best Buy any more.
I understand that some states impose a a fee for recycling/dumping CRT devices, but others do not. e.g., MI does, IN does not (so I was told this week).
Perce
These things apparently vary locally. Best Buy was touting they take all electronic equipment but snuck in charge for some. I know they will take printers free and maybe even give a 15% rebate for an HP. I don't like surprises. I had taken 4 much larger CRT TV's there in the past for no charge and did not suspect a charge on this small item. I had bought 4 flat screen TV's at Best Buy but they were not connected to me dropping off my old ones.
Did not mention but they had consolidated two much closer stores to a larger one in a new addition to a large mall here. I hate going to that mall because of heavy traffic and labyrinth of exits onto interstates. If I buy anything else from them, it will be on line where they might be competitive with free shipping. My wife is also dropping her computer Geek squad policy because of their move to the mall.
There used to be a computer recycling place around here, where they disassembled them, and then sold all the usable parts, such as hard drives (which were wiped and tested), RAM, cards, and so on... These parts were sold cheaply, and sometimes they had working older computers which sold cheaply too. All the other parts, such as dead boards, plastic cases, and metals were recycled for their raw materials. (the plastic cases went to the electric company to burn and create power).
The state came along and shut that place down. They said they could do a better job. All they did was enact a fee of $20 per item at collection sites with limited hours. No one knows where these electronic items go now.... I really miss that place, where I could buy reusable parts.
I recycle my own stuff. If I have a crt tv, I remove the circuit boards, chassis, etc. All metal goes in my scrap metal pile, which I sell for scrap. The plastic cases go in my burn pile, and I put a CRT tube in a cardboard box and turn it into pieces of glass, which I dispose of in a dumpster. I have yet to find a place to take the circuit boards, so there is a box of them in my shed. On the rare occasion I need a capacitor, resistor or diode, one of them boards should have what I need.
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