When Benjamin Franklin made a practical demonstration of electricity in 1752, by flying a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to it, he never would have dreamed of the millions of ways in which we capture electricity today. Those experiments led the way to a lifestyle dependent upon electricity in so many ways. With the flip of a switch, we have lights. Refrigerators hum in billions of households around the world. And in just as many of those households, with the press of a button, televisions come to life.
The Age of Television Technology
Early televisions were a far cry from what we know today. John Logie Baird held the first public demonstration of a television in London, England in 1926. It was a simple system of images captured via light bounced off rotating metal disks and transmitted through wires. The image dimly captured a moving human face in 30 lines. With advances, 120 lines were visible by 1931. These early mechanical televisions soon gave way to electronic versions with cathode ray tubes (CRT), but the changes didn’t stop there. By the 1940s colour televisions became available, although their sale didn’t outpace black and white TVs until the 1960s. All this while screens grew from a matter of inches to several feet in diameter.
Today those big, clunky TVs have given way to thin, digital flat screens with crisp images capable of 720p and 1080p views. As people upgrade to the newest models to take advantage of digital cable, those old TVs end up in basements, listed on kijiji, or set to the curb with a free sign. You should know though that most donation centres no longer accept CRT television sets. They will not be picked up during municipal garbage collection either. So what do you do with your old TV when you decide to join the digital generation?
Contact Load of Rubbish.
Television Recycling
Just because your old television no longer has an active place in your home, doesn’t mean that it has no value. Televisions are full of plastic, glass, and precious metals like gold and copper. These items can be recycled. Televisions also contain harmful chemicals like lead and mercury, which require special handling. When Load of Rubbish collects your old TV, we drop it off at an approved electronics recycler through the Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES) program. Via modern methods, all of those materials are safely extracted from your old electronics, then either disposed of in an approved manner or reused in new manufacturing.
When Load of Rubbish collects your old TV, it doesn’t end up in landfill. We don’t ship televisions overseas for illegal dismantling, where both the environment and the people who work on them are at risk. We get it out of your home and do our part to get it recycled. Our aim is to make the world a better place, one TV set at a time. So when you have outgrown your bunny ears, call 519-637-6928; Load of Rubbish will free up space in your home with the peace of mind that you have done something kind for the environment via our television recycling efforts.
We like to think Benjamin Franklin would approve.
