It occurs to me that our society is pumping out CDs and DVDs, blank and pre-written, at what is to me a fairly astonishing rate. What’s going to happen to them all when they’re inevitably superseded by the next format? I have nightmares about huge landfills containing stacks of shiny discs hundreds of feet high.
Can your average compact disc or digital versatile disc be recycled in any meaningful way? Or are we stuck with them til the end of time?
Even if they could be recycled, reality says that 99% of them will be thrown out instead.
Landfills, ho!
Nothing you mention doesn’t apply to tons of other consumer items as well. Modern landfills are sealed and well-managed. It isn’t like people will be scattering their old CD’s randomly in the woods (well some teenagers will but that is for another day). There aren’t many things that can hurt a landfill in the long-term. They will just be covered over with dirt and perhaps made into parkland like long-term waste has in many other areas. Even newspapers and magazines don’t decay in those things so the biodegradbale argument doesn’t hold much water. It sounds icky but properly managed landfills don’t stand a chance at hurting the earth a bit.
Coasters.
People will hang them from their rearview mirrors as a way to avoid speed traps.
I used to stretch them between two rubber bands and upright 2x4s. That way, when I hit 'em with my rifle, they’d spin around and I’d know I hit my practice target by the flashing light.
Or, I’d use a shotgun on 'em after I flung 'em.
Tripler
Don’t ask me what I did with my old desktop. :dubious: 
Properly managed anything won’t hurt anybody. But name one thing that’s properly managed. The lawn seating at the landfill topping concert pavillion near here regularly catches fire during performances.
Clay liners at modern landfills may be specified by engineers, but the contractor building it is looking for profit wherever he can get away with it. They crack like anything else that is built poorly.
On the other hand, if you’re suggesting that consumption is good for us because it’s good for the economy and landfills are a small liability to incur to reap that benefit, fair enough. But “don’t stand a chance of hurting the earth a bit” is a bit of an oversell. The Earth doesn’t care, anyway. It us humans and our water supplies that are getting trashed.
Did you go all “Office Space” on it?
This isn’t always the case with e-waste like old DVDs and CDs. Much of the west usually exports electronic waste to 3rd-world landfills which lack the expensive protections necessary to contain many of the toxic chemicals in electronics, including DVDs. It’s a pretty nasty policy which is growing into a major problem.
Some cites:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/114-4/spheres.html
http://www.isa.org/PrinterTemplate.cfm?Section=Pintos_Points1&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=43465
I can show you many, many landfills that are properly managed.
Clay liners are rarely used any more. Most lined landfills being constructed today have a double layer of 60-mil polyethylene (HDPE) geomembrane with a leak detection system installed between the layers.
And while contractors may indeed try to get away with anything they can, you would be amazed at the required testing for installation of the geomembrane. The geomembrane comes in 20-foot wide rolls that weigh several tons. The panels are then heat-welded together. Every single weld on the whole landfill is non-destructively tested. Every 500 feet of weld is destructively tested and patched. Any failed seams are cut out and redone. When complete, the whole landfill is filled with water to check for leakage. Finally, the baseliner is covered with 1-2 feet of sand to protect the membrane.
Years later, when the landfill is full, it is covered with a geomembrane cap, a layer of sand, and a layer of topsoil.
Landfills filled with municipal solid waste do produce methane as the waste decomposes. This gas is vented off or captured and burned, sometimes for generators. If not properly handled, it can lead to problems, such as fires.
On the other hand, landfills are also used to dispose of ash resulting from burning waste in waste-to-energy incinerator plants, and those landfills produce no gas whatsoever.
Modern landfills in the U.S. are very tightly regulated. They bear little resemblance to the “dumps” of the past.
My comments above notwithstanding, I agree with your sentiments here. The waste has to go somewhere, though, so we may as well dispose of it in the most environmentally responsible manner that we can.
–robby, P.E. (Environmental Engineer)
I think the point was that CDs and DVDs are essentially inert and immutable. If you burn them, then of course they’re going to put out smoke and assorted toxins that you’re better off not inhaling. Whether you bury one or one thousand CDs won’t make much difference to the environment other than the physical bulk in the ground.
AFAIK, the discs don’t leach out toxins - they just lay there forever. That’s the gist of the OP’s question. What can we do with unwanted optical media other than burying it? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be “not much.”
There’s a scene at the beginning of “Back to the Future 2” when they land the DeLorean in an alleyway. Next to the car there’s piles of trash, including a big compressed bundle of discarded CDs, with a big “SILICON” label slapped on the side.
At the time, I thought it was an amusing futuristic touch. Sure enough, they were correct.
Can they turn them back into oil? Or fertiliser? Or at least more plastic?
Behold just one website which proclaims CD & DVD recycling facilities.
It explains how this process is carried out.
A friend had access to many thousands of discarded CDs (unlabeled and pristine-looking). He made good use of them by gluing them to his living room wall. They are arranged in neat rows covering the entire wall, and the wall now looks like a prismatic mirror. It’s gorgeous, and it cost nothing.
Well, what happened to all those vinyl LPs?
We should be using them for homemade solar furnaces. 
Here in Minneapolis, they get burned and the resulting energy is used to heat downtown buildings.
They burn real well – they are, after all, an oil-based item.
Oh no. . . it was much, much better.
I found that the tower case would stop a 20 gauge at 15 feet. The best part? The hard drive stopped a 5.56mm.
Tripler
Next invention–hard drive body armor for our troops. Listen to mp3s while engaging the enemy!
I don’t think it’ll be a big deal.
How many CDs do you own?
Even if it’s in the hundreds or thousands, how big a pile really would they make? Then compare this to all the other crap you’re going to have to throw away. Even if five per cent of your weekly household waste is non-biodegradable, remember that’s weekly, but it’s taken you since 1982 to collect all those CDs. Throw away a PC, a car battery or two, and you’ve probably already beaten your CD collection in terms of environmental harm and/or landfill space.