Find a New Use for Your Old TV: Electronics Recycling Event Set for Sunday

If you have an old, unused television, computer or electronic device taking up space in your house, here’s your chance to get rid of it responsibly.

There will be an electronics-recycling event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday in the public parking at lot the corner of Main Street and Spring Street in the borough.

Computer towers, printers, keyboards, DVD, VCR and CD players and more will be accepted at the event, which , Zelienople and Harmony are sponsoring. The collection is free, but a $10 donation is asked for recycling televisions.

This is the second electronics-recycling event to be held within a month. On Sept. 17, Cranberry partnered with to collect 15 tons of electronics at the Public Works Operations Center in Cranberry. The haul included 100 tube-type TVs, many of which were still in operating condition.

Lorin Meeder, Cranberry’s environmental program coordinator, said even some flat-screen televisions, albeit with a few years on them, were dropped off at the event.

“Since the move to digital signals, everybody has a TV that’s probably a little out of date,” he said. “Your old picture-tube televisions are going by the wayside. The older flat screens also lose some definition and picture after a while.”

The recycled TVs are stripped for salvage. Meeder said televisions shouldn’t be put in the trash because the copper and other metals found inside the sets can leach into landfills. It also would waste material from televisions that can be repurposed into other uses, including plastic bottles and even other televisions, he said.

“You’ll be throwing away the metal, plastics and the resources we use every day,” he said. “It’s like having an automobile; we don’t throw them away, we take the resources and we reuse it again.”

In the case of usable computers, Goodwill employees dismantle, repair and resell the units after destroying any personal data residing on their hard drives, the township said in a statement.

About 250 vehicles arrived at the collection site to offload equipment, which was documented with charitable donation vouchers. Township officials said Cranberry’s e-cycling event is one of Goodwill Industries’ largest in the region.

Although he was pleased with the turnout, Meeder said there are still many people who are unaware of recycling for electronics.

“There are probably two to three televisions or computers in every house,” he said. “So think how much is out there that needs to be recycled. We need to get this process and everybody familiar with it.”

Volunteers from Cranberry’s also helped manage the Cranberry collection, according to the township.