At home I had two CRT TVs, in my basement which I had no use for. I took it apart to take the yoke, degaussing cables, wires, inductors (and miscellaneous copper parts), IC chips. But then I have the CRT tubes which I will need to get rid of.

My town does an electronics recycling event each month, which is free for anything except for TVs and monitors. It costs $5 to recycle each TV or monitor. I won't be making more than $10 in scrap to at least break even with the cost of recycling the tube. And, I don't want to just put it in the garbage as it has lead, phosphor, and other substances bad for the environment.

What is your way of getting rid of tubes? Or should I just take the loss?

Can't help you with a good answer, unless you invent a time travel machine. Until flaT SCREENS and led's took over, monitor glass was about 30 cents per pound, (40 ton lots, no local buyers interested in individual pounds) and when it was feasible to repair a CRT. local repair shops sometimes would buy the TV tube back for $25, if they needed it. Now, ????

You can’t just put them in the trash. It’s a federal crime on top of any state laws.
If it’s whole there’s a “market” for free ones. Of certain classes.
Anything between 22” and 34” has a market in Arcade collecting. Anything under 18” and you have some retro gaming and computing interest. Gamers will also jump for mega huge ones.

I’d suggest posting on Craigslist or ebay (as local pickup). With a few rare except You won’t be selling anything for any real money but you can break even with an ebay post for $3 or even $2 if your a store seller. That’s for whole TVs and monitors though. Working or not. Craigslist just make them for free. Someone will show up. Offer Up works as well.

If all you have is the he actual glass screen and tube your generally out of luck unless you have a triniton or Mitsubishi. Those refractive flat tube systems still see some movement even for the bare glass.

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Yep I am aware, which is why I made this post to find a cost effective way that is not landfill.



I kind of regret destroying them, it's pretty much scrap value now.

One of them is a NEC CRT monitor that has severe burn in, so I doubt anyone would want it even for free. The other is a RCA 20 inch flat front TV which was working, except the DVD player which won't read discs. I wasn't aware that there were people out there who wants CRT TVs for retro gaming and light gun games, and someone probably would want the RCA TV for about $50. I will sell the remote on eBay though.




Unfortunately, that's the case. It seems like today, CRT tubes have a negative value in recycling, and are recycled because they contain toxic and environmentally harmful substances such as lead and phosphor.

Here’s the thing with tv/monitor recycling. Without directly moving to conspiracy territory.
Recycling a whole tube monitor with or without a tuner board is worth more than the cost of recycling process; 100% of the time!
Even leaded glass still is more valuable than the melt process. Lead glass is used with other minerals to make many safety glass types. An I guarantee there at least some in your 2021 car. The backing glass of self dimming mirrors use a lead glass panel. Glass dial covers are usually lead glass. Glass o2 sensors. And something everyone has a few of, glass fuses.

Fibre optic tubes are made from lead glass. As are the optical versions of thunderbolt cables.

The federal government put life and manufacturing limits in place and most states have set up their own collection system, or a partnership with a neighbouring state.
Today lead glass is collected by a very small subset of the recycling industry.
Most are big name tech companies; eg Dell and Apple. The states claim this method makes tracking and safety easier. Not that there ever was a single incident if commercial dumping of TVs within the United States.

A 50lb 32” tv will yield $7-$15 of scrap.
Transporting a single TV as part of any shipment costs about 40č if done entirely in state.

First the manufacturer or another company accepts your old TV. They then send all of their materials collected via an ecycle program, offered by a licensed group (Dell etc) to a licensed demanufacturer.

In the most automated of deconstruction it takes 15 minutes of human work ($2.50-$3.75), the rest is automated belt fed assembly line machine work. Using under $1 in electricity if not green sourced. Using premelt processors on all materials it costs about 60č in energy total to add each material to a premelt cauldron. Another $1 or so in air conditioning in pouring houses to maintain ambient temps under 90• for human workers.
Every tv is making money.
Add to that that some states have a mandatory non refundable etax fee in the sale, supposedly going to the manufacturer in order to take the item back, and you have zero loss prospect.

So is this about safety, control, or big tech money. That’s been debated since the late 90s.

TLDR
First choice is to attempt to sell a tv. Not turning on, or the picture being dim or not being correctly centred, doesn’t make a tube monitor unsellable.
Only major burn-in is a no-go.
Most will flip for $10-$20. Some still fetch hundreds (look above). A pretty but dead TV can almost always bring $5.

If I still have it 6 months later I drag it to my workbench and get to scrapping.
In my end it’s worth scrapping down a tv and paying the $5 fee out of pocket for the glass. The big dirty-copper coils, wrapped aluminium or copper degaussing cable. A pound or more of mixed wire. Copper, aluminium, nickel, and tin. I rarely sort this level of small wires. I’ll break down the power board giving me a few more pounds of copper and aluminium.
I don’t break down anything under 50lbs or smaller than 24 inches though. I can drop off a whole TV (up to 3) for free on weekends at the county hazmat drop. But they won’t take bare glass there. :(
That has to go to a monthly drop off and costs $5 per set. Bare glass or completely whole.
Good thing about that: they pull drives from computers and resell most items in bulk pallets! 500lbs of computers, 1200 lbs of laptops. 4 refrigerators. Etc.
County sells most of the free drop tech at the paid drop off location by auction.

Well, they did before COVID. Hope they do it again soon!

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Thanks Lostinlodos for the most transparent article on glass monitor tubes I have ever read.

Nothing irks me like self serving pork laws added to recycling methods.
It’s reality, not myth. Tube monitors are still made today. And still sold today. Just not at big box stores.

You pay a National fee when you buy one. You may also pay a state escrap fee.
Both free money
You then pay to get rid of of. On top of the fees and taxes you already paid. And you can pay 10x as much in fees if you take it apart yourself.
All this on an item that is 100% profit over cost in recycling! Grr.

This little piggy took your wallet and never came home!

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Find an e-waste company near you. They will likely have a relationship with an ITAD company for TV's, who in turn, have an OEM takeback program in place. The ITAD company gets paid by OEM's (Sony, LG, etc.) for handling tv's that they are required to take back; think on the order of like $0.40/lb or something close.
If your local e-waste company, or one near you, wants to charge to handle your tv, just mention the ITAD stuff and they will likely take it for nothing, as they pay nothing to send it along.

Protip: The redneck in me wanted to say "Just put the glass and tube into a black contractors bag and smash it up".
Don't do this, obviously, for legal reasons and for health reasons. The glass is leaded and the cathode tube is highly toxic.

I don't know if they appreciate me when the box gets opened but I take apart CRTs to the point where the glass is bare and then box it up according to the instructions on Goodwill's website for the Dell Reconnect program and just drop it off at Goodwill.

I started doing the same with LCDs, just wait until I have a stack that feels roughly the right weight for a single whole unit so that hopefully the drop off guy doesn't look at me too funny.

If I had the space I might collect the glass and try and find a buyer (I saw Lostinlodos does this) but this works for me currently.

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Just my 2 cents. I don't take any Tv's period. However I will take a CRT monitor if It comes with a complete computer. My area has recycle days and they will take crt monitors. costs me 10 bucks to get rid of it. I take the yoke and boards out of them. I figure I get a nice computer and the other stuff out of the monitor and maybe lose a lil $ or just break even. BUT the monitor is getting recycled and not tossed in a landfill.