With two million old TVs estimated to be offloaded annually to make room for these, how can the proud owner of a new plasma display ensure their old CRT doesn't join the toxic swamp at the local tip?
Carrying a poisonous cargo of almost 2kgs of lead and other heavy metals, millions of old televisions are finding their way into Australian landfills each year, rather than being recycled.
Around three million new televisions hit our shores last year as the popularity of flat screen technology and the looming 2010 switchover from analogue to digital drove a blistering pace of consumption.
With two million old TVs estimated to be offloaded annually to make room for these, how can the proud owner of a new plasma display ensure their old CRT doesn't join the toxic swamp at the local tip?
In the absence of a unified television recycling program, options for conscientious consumers are little more than a patchwork of local government initiatives, says Fraser Brindley, production and consumption campaigner at Environment Victoria.
"I get so many calls per week from people saying 'I have got all these TVs to get rid of'. If there does happen to be a recycling collection point near them they generally have to pay to offload them".
On Friday, Australia's state and federal environment ministers agreed to set up a national electronic waste recycling scheme.
Details of the scheme won't be in place for another six months but it is expected to involved a levy of about $35 on new TVs to help pay for the cost of collecting and recycling the old ones.
Product Stewardship Australia, an organisation representing TV manufacturers, has been working with Government to develop the framework for such a scheme since 2006.
Executive officer John Gertsakis, says: "Australia is a laggard in the area of television recycling.
"In spite of the whole switch over to digital there seems to be this resistance and indifference to deal with a recycling scheme that would support it".
Instead of the cost of recycling falling to the television manufacturers as it does in other countries, the financial and logistical burden rests largely on local governments who must either transport the thousands of discarded or dumped televisions to landfill or, in rare cases, take matters into their own hands by establishing expensive recycling schemes.
Melbourne's Boroondara council has recycled 19 tonnes of electronic waste for local residents since establishing a central drop-off point, and a spokesman says residents now demand the service.
The City of Sydney council recently set up its own quarterly e-waste collection day where 95-98 per cent of the raw material in electronic items are recovered and reused in manufacturing.
But such initiatives are still thin on the ground, especially in regional areas where there are no electronics recycling companies nearby to deal with collected waste.
"There are only a handful of councils running recycling programs and it is a hell of an operation for any individual organisation to get up and going. What we need is a Federal scheme that funds local collection points across the country or at the point of sale," says Mr Brindley.
To lessen the burden on the environment, the City of Sydney recommends looking at other options before throwing equipment away such as passing it on to friends or family, or hosting a garage sale.
"There are also a range of reuse organisations such as The Bower Bird and Reverse Garbage and charity organisations who accept second hand goods," a spokesman says.
Both the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul say they will accept used televisions which are working and meet certain criteria, and a number of websites such as freecycle.org and ozrecycle.com have also sprung up in recent years for passing unwanted household items to others who desire them.
Consumers also have the option of taking old equipment to e-waste recycling operations such as SIMS and MRI, however these centres are only based in larger metropolitan areas, and will charge a small fee for recycling old CRT televisions.
What you can do:
:: Pass on old equipment on to family or friends, or even strangers through an online recycling group such as http://www.freecycle.org.
:: Give old equipment to a charity shop or host a garage sale.
:: Check out whether your local council is running an e-waste recycling program at: http://www.recyclingnearyou.com.au/
:: Take your computer directly to an e-waste recycling depot such as SIMS, MRI or TIC Group for a small fee
:: Ask the Federal Government to set up a national TV recycling scheme at http://www.reborn.org.au
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