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Would your regular everyday CD discs fall into the e-scrap Hard Drive Platter category?
The common sense approach would lead one to think yes.
But. I learned many times. Common sense and High tech do not always mix well.
Here to learn like everybody else.
My evaluations are my own opinion.

CDs are mostly plastic with a very thin metal layer, so they feel more like a separate headache than platter scrap. Hard drive platters are a different animal altogether.

I don't think Boardsort will even take CD/DVD/BRs. That said, if you have the quantity there's always a chance.

Hard disk platters are typically aluminum or glass with the very thinnest of layers of precious metals that, from all I've gathered here, may not even be recovered in the processing chain Boardsort is a part of. There's that little there.

Magnetic tape and floppies are not something they take either, as far as I know.

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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

Optical discs are not a boardsort commodity.
There are recycling programmes for them though.
The hardest problem with optical discs is the variety of metals used to make them. The most common is aluminium. And the vast majority are made of this. However there’s also tin, silver, and gold discs in large quantities.
That’s just pre-recorded discs recordables are a whole different story. The vast majority of recordables use a silver alloy metal surface. And these are much easier to recycle the metal. But there’s the dye and pigment issue here. And no two manufacturers use the same dye. Many have different dyes for different grades. Those dyes range from non-toxic organics, to dangerous.

You’re not going to find a normal buyer for most media. Your easiest bet is a local ewaste drop off. Either a village/county program or a big box store bin if you don’t care what’s on them. Otherwise there’s services like TerraCycle and Green Disk that have paid programs.


Magnetic tape is a different story. Some very large steel recyclers will take them for free. If not the same companies that recycle optical media usually take magnetic media as well.

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