TVs no longer accepted

The Wanaka Wastebusters Recycling Centre plans to pull the plug on its television set recycling service today.

General manager Sue Coutts said the decision was taken because the charge set by the company running the national service - RCN E-Waste - was increasing from $25 to $40.

She considered $25 ''the upper price that people are willing and able to pay''.

''We don't think it's reasonable to expect our community to pay $40 to recycle a TV at the end of its life. I also don't want to put my staff in a position where they have to take a lot of flak over the $40 price tag.

''We're disappointed that we have to stop recycling TVs and monitors, but it reflects the fact that they are bulky, heavy items which are expensive to transport and recycle.''

Wanaka Wastebusters has recycled 2575 television sets and monitors from Wanaka and 1114 from Queenstown in the past three years.

Ms Coutts said there was little of value in old television sets. However, there were some valuable metals in other electronic equipment, such as computer towers, laptops, flat-screen monitors, cables and printers, and these would continue to be collected for recycling.

She suggested people hang on to their old sets until a ''viable long-term recycling scheme'' was in place.

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement