I’m finally converting acres of CDs to digital and am having a hard time finding anything to do with the discs and cases that doesn’t involve a trash can.
What’s the straight dope: is there ANY legitimate means of recycling them?
Other than finding someone who has an art project (and if that person exists they’re probably still tunneling their way out from under AOL dialup CDs) is there any destination or fate besides a landfill?
I’m in Texas if that makes a difference in recycling opportunities.
tip-tapping away by phone, but why would you care?
CDs are polycarbonate. Which is recycling code 7 in the little three-arrows-triangle. Some curbside programs take code 7. Others do not. Check your local authorities.
Industrial polycarbonate is widely recycled. Whether you can find a local industrial recycler that’ll take your pitifully small pile is another matter.
CDs are also a classic example of a mixed material, where the layer of aluminum foil and the layer of polycarbonate are impractical to separate mechanically. So they need to use thermal or chemical means to separate the material streams. Which may well mean it’s more polluting to disassemble them than it is to landfill them intact.
Finally, CDs (without the jewel box) weigh ~15g. So a monster collection of One Thousand [sub]tiniest tip of pinky to corner of mouth[/sub] CDs represents just about 30 lbs of plastic. Or about the same landfilling value as 1/10th of one set of tires for a Texas-standard pickup truck. Texas goes through roughly 2.5 to 3 million sets of tires per year, or about 8,000 sets per day.
IOW, Texans dispose of the equivalent of 80,000 sets of 1,000 CDs every day just in tires. Not to mention what they get through in Big Gulp cups, damaged front bumpers, and blister packs. Most of which is not recycled.
Agonizing over a one-time contribution of 30# to the solid waste stream is silly. It’s what each of us does day in and day out that matters. Rest assured your next door neighbor, all by himself, is more than offsetting every good deed you’ll ever do in your life. Relax this once. It’ll be OK. Really.
Attitudinally I’m on your side. I really am. But there are times to fight on and times to admit defeat. Unless your curbside program takes #7 my advice is let it go.
If you sell or give them away to someone else, you no longer own the music that’s on them—they do. I’m not sure what the legal status is if you just trash them: IMHO I don’t see a problem morally, but pragmatically, you no longer have a physical backup if something happens to your electronic copies (or if you decide the copies you made weren’t ripped at a high enough quality). If physical storage space is an issue you could remove the CDs (and inserts) from the jewel cases and just keep those. I don’t know whether there’s still anyone who’s have a use for empty jewel cases or not.
Giving them away is another option to try if you fail to sell them, before resorting to recycling.
If worse comes to worst, and no local recycler wants your mixed #7 plastic, you can bulk mail them to one that does, eg http://www.cdrecyclingcenter.org/
This is not the forum to get into U.S. case law, but format-shifting and backing up your recordings (say onto your computer or MP3 player) for personal use has generally been considered OK, and as far as I know you are not bound to keep the original discs until you grow old and die, so I would not lose any sleep about that aspect of it.
Actually, it’s illegal to keep a digital file copied from your CDs if you get rid of them. You must delete your digital files. This is largely unenforceable, though.
If you can’t sell them outright, find out if there’s a consignment store in your area that will take them. There are two in mine that do, although you won’t get much for them. It’s better than nothing, however. And if you can’t, there are always thrift stores or the library, if they take them; some may not. The same thing is true for charity rummage sales; it doesn’t hurt to ask.
There are plenty of folks who would love to buy ‘acres’ of CDs. Ebay shoppers, thrift stores, used record stores, etc. would certainly give you something for them. Put them on Craigslist for 25 cents each for the lot.
Otherwise, donate them to a local library that holds used book sales.
It’s not like you’re trying to get rid of a hoard of 8-tracks.
mmm
This is not an illegal activity for Christ sake. What law has she broken? At most it lies in a gray area of end use agreement which might not even survive a court challenge.
Again, in the US, you own the physical medium that the files are on. You don’t own the files themselves. You are allowed to make backups for your own personal use, as long as you keep the physical media in your possession. You are free to sell, give away, or donate your CDs as you please, but you cannot keep the digital backups and should delete them from your devices. Again, this is largely unenforceable. The digital police aren’t going to come after you if you keep the music. But legally, it is a violation of copyright law.
1)Its not a law
2)Its the result of a court ruling
3)Its purely a civil manner unless she starts making copies to sell.
These issues are always in flux. At the dawn of the age of video, the studios claimed that taping their shows and movies was a violation of their copyright. It took a long court struggle to determine that the public could keep their recordings.
