![]() ![]() Later, at my wealthy, image-conscious high school, I shopped mostly at the Salvation Army, and managed-usually-to keep up with my peers’ styles. My obsession with reusing trash began at around age 5, when I collected bottle caps just because they were too pretty to throw away. (For this and other tough recycling quandaries, try Green Citizen, or .) Or search for vintage shops or record stores to see if they will accept VHS tapes.īut before you send off your videotapes and flood the market with this increasingly useless commodity, you might consider another approach: turning it into something more useful, like a table, or even a fly swatter. Instead, look for local recycling companies. The tapes aren’t dangerous so long as they don’t start to break down, but there’s enough toxic metal there to earn them classification of electronic waste, or “e-waste.” That means you can’t just dump your old tapes in the landfill-those metals will eventually leach out in the dump, potentially contaminating the surrounding water and soil. That’s what allows the tape to carry a magnetic signal. What’s worse, in these magnetic tapes the Mylar is coated with toxic metals, especially chromium. The inner tape is made of a phthalate-laden form of the plastic polyethylene, often sold under the trade name Mylar, which is not recyclable. But you can’t just chuck the whole thing into a recycling bin. The outer cases of VHS, Betamax and audio cassette tapes are indeed plastic, and at least theoretically recyclable. Extrapolated around the world, that’s a whole lot of obsolete plastic, indeed. No one seems to know exactly how many VHS tapes were made during the medium’s heyday, but in 2003 the Danish environmental protection agency estimated annual sales of about 12 million tapes per year, in that tiny country alone. ![]() Even thrift stores will usually turn down donations: VHS tapes just don’t have market value anymore. But if you thought you could unload them on eBay or Craigslist, you’re going to be disappointed: VHS tapes, like so much outmoded technology, are too ubiquitous to be valuable, and not nearly old enough to be interesting. Shilpa Sarkar, ’11, from Stanford, Calif.Ĭongratulations! You’ve overcome nostalgia and you’re ready to get rid of some VHS tapes. If I want to get rid of old VHS tapes in my house without trashing them, what can I do? Is it really that bad to throw them away in the first place? Editor's Note: The linked resources in this story were updated in 2020. ![]()
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