Can CDs Be Recycled?

Cencini asks: "After spending a nice rainy afternoon backing up files and music onto several CD's, and being aware of the decreasing price of recordable CD media (and increasing general popularity), I can only imagine how many recordable CD's are produced each year, how many are thrown out, and how much in the way of raw materials goes into their production. Has anyone looked into the possibility (creative or industrial) of recycling these CD's, or even the environmental impact of their mass disposal (when Something Better comes down the line)? Given the fact that it's hard to throw away computer monitors in some places nowadays, I wonder where this issue is going, if anywhere..." Despite the fact that data on CDRs may last a long time, there are still situations when CDs and CDRs will be sent to the trash-bins in large numbers (bad burns for example), is there any process that we can use to recycle the used media, or are they destined to end up with audio cassettes,VHS and BETA tapes in the landfills?

Comments

"creative"

[Sneezer]

i have nothing useful to say on real recycling, but as for reuse, there are a number of creative things you could do...:

• there is the ever-popular AOL/Earthlink/Bad-Burn Coaster Collection, popular in dorm rooms, bachelor pads, and finely decorated homes and gardens. (available from IKEA for only $399.95)
• there is a car in my friend's neighborhood which has quartered CDs glued to it so they look like fish scales.
• you could make a giant heliograph and signal (or blind) your friends for miles around.
• having just watched A View to a Kill, i can imagine a Bond villain collecting millions of them and threatening to destroy the moon with a concentrated blast of solar energy.
• sell them on eBay as Dreamcast/PS2 games.
• there was a guy in Hellraiser II who had a bunch of CDs in his head, and who killed people by whizzing these CDs at them, Tron-like.

or, for a semi-serious suggestion, you might check the art departments at local schools to see if they need lots of raw material to make lovely centerpieces and mother's day cards.

Re:Yes, they can be (and are) recycled

[Molly]

Information about optical polycarbonate recycling.

Molly.

CD should not be recycled

[Gregg M]

CDs are the one thing we should not be recycling. They are easy to recycle. But let the people of the future do it. IMHO In the future, garbage dumps will be archeological gold mines. Bought and sold for millions because of all the non-recycled plastics and metals the future can grab from them.

They will also preserve information about all we did in the 20th. Think about it! Looking through our garbage is the only way to see a honest representation of a people. CDs will be better than newspapers to tell the people of the future, what the hell happened back in the 90s!

We should fill them up with our daily journals and pack them in the garbage. Nude pics of our girlfriends, scans of receipts, email archives, ICQ logs, anything you can think of. Pack them with all of the things TV and Newspapers will not record about our time.