Can CDs Be Recycled? 136
An anonymous reader asks: "I was recently doing a closet-cleaning and came across literally hundreds of old software CDs that are no longer usable — both manufactured CDs and CD-Rs. Note that by 'not usable', I mean that many of them simply couldn't be read anymore, possibly due to the fact that they'd been stored rather ineptly (no, I wasn't responsible for how they were stored). It seems wrong to just throw them out, but are there other things that can be done with them that will allow their raw materials to be reused in some way?Is it possible to reclaim CDs for raw materials?"
They make great coasters (Score:3, Funny)
NINJA STAR CDs (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NINJA STAR CDs (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, just don't use them in a 52x CD reader or the CD will fracture and the spikes will fly off and take off everybody's kneecaps.
...unless that was the plan all along. Touché /.ninja, touché.
Re:NINJA STAR CDs (Score:4, Funny)
Would you consider that "defective by design" or a hidden "feature" of the disc?
I would think it very useful in the right situation. Is anyone filming a new James Bomd film?
Asterisk PBX CDs make good throwing stars (Score:2)
well-balanced throwing star (Score:1)
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Oh God am I really having a serious conversation about the structural integrity of throwing-star shaped CDs?
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These kinds of discs are available. Several years ago, DiscMakers was the first company I saw with them made to customer specs. I couldn't find them on their website but several other companies offer the service.
http://www.answers.com/topic/shaped-cd [answers.com]
http://www.multishapecdrom.com/cd_showcase/?case=i rr_01 [multishapecdrom.com]
http://www.newcyberian.com/shapedcd.h [newcyberian.com]
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On a side note, I find the best ninja stars are made from CD-Rs. the commercial ones usually have an ink layer that flakes off everywhere and just looks untidy when its done.
Re:They make great coasters (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:They make great coasters (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand they don't tend to stop the wax from flowing all over the place.
Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
Same situation here (Score:2)
The ones with sensitive data (financial) or work I shred into a shredder. I at least am aware some I might not want to give away or trash so its too easily recovered.
Isn't the problem that the metal and polycarbon layers in the CD would be hard to separate to recycle? If CDs are "bad for the environment/recycling", is there
Dunno about the US. (Score:5, Informative)
Dunno about Europe. (Score:3, Informative)
It annoys me so much that in a little flat country such as Denmark we can't figure out how to sort our waste, especially when the tiniest mountain villages in Austria do it. >_< Ok, rant over.
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I bring them to the recycling centre like almost every other plastic I collect. Nobody ever complained. I'll look if they have a separate container for it next time I go there. There are employees that do the sorting for us. (I like going there, especially for dumpster diving in the electronics container. Nuggets I found there are a P-IV 1.9GHz and an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz... both in working order. I don't even bother taking P-III class machines anymore... *grin*)
I don't live in Denmark though...
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The folks down there throw tantrums if you're caught dumpster diving, which is sad because I think direct re-use is better than eventual recycling, no? I did manage to salvage a couple of Nixies from some weird old scientific instrument, though.
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I'll take a closer look at what they do with the CDs next time that I'm there. Promised. Still, if one googles fro CD Recycling, it seems to exist.
Oh, they weren't happy to find out when I got caught dumpster diving. Now, I just look around if there are any employees around. I don't understand it either: re-use should be better.
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Re:Dunno about Europe. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dunno about Europe. (Score:4, Interesting)
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A bit OT, but I called poison control (and then the "animal" poison control...) a few months ago after my dog ate most of a CD-R, thinking the same thing. They assured me there was nothing toxic, despite my insistence that while I don't understand much physics/chemistry, I was under the impression that the recordable layer is some type of organic dye.
I looked on the web at the time and wasn't able to find anything that seemed consistent about the makeup of the metal
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Materials Safety Data Sheet
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/NI/nickel.html [ox.ac.uk]
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You lost me here.....sort waste (trash)? You don't just throw it in the garbage can, and once or twice a week, the garbagemen drive by the front of your house and empty your can and haul it all away?
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"It annoys me so much that in a little flat country such as Denmark we can't figure out how to sort our waste..."
You lost me here.....sort waste (trash)? You don't just throw it in the garbage can, and once or twice a week, the garbagemen drive by the front of your house and empty your can and haul it all away?
Perhaps I should have written garbage, yes.
Here, everything goes into the same (under-the-sink) trash can, then into a single-compartment garbage truck, to one garbage heap. It pains me everytime I have to throw away perfectly good alumim(i)um foil. As it is, trying to roll a ton of it into a big ball for recycling would only serve to make me (a) $.02 richer, and (b) a laughing-stock.
OTOH, in Austria (or at least several parts of it) you are supposed to sort your garbage into separate trash cans for organi
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The reason behind this is that trash sorting is ideologically, not economically motivated. Governments play on guilt and obedience to keep people in line. If recycling were necessary because of some expected shortage, that would be reflected by market prices because speculators would hold reso
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I can relate to the Al foil dilemma. I guess it bothers me to toss out something that used to be more valuable than gold.
Just imagine 50 years from now when we're equally conflicted with tossing out titanium foil.
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I could have personal pictures on CDs, or scans of tax forms, or even just documents that I don't want associated with my identity but maybe just one file might identify me. They could be backups of source code I've written that I wouldn't want people to get their hands on, but I'm replacing them with new copies periodically to avoid CD rot and need to securely destroy them. Maybe the RIAA thinks I'm illegally redis
Yes (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
obvious (Score:1, Redundant)
Microwave (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Microwave (Score:4, Informative)
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DON'T BREATHE THE VAPORS!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
The laptop backlight and 10" fluorescent tube were... bright. Like, searchlight bright. And strangely enough some of the most interesting effects were done with food, like split grapes and an unopened bag of marshmallows. We never achieved a stable plasma (we made some that lasted a few seconds, though) mostly because of the diffculty in controlling air currents.
Anyway, we fried a lot of CDs, because they look tres cool in the microwave. My buddy Pete and I each got a slight whiff of the vapor produced by this (we were outside at the time) and it was a week or so before we stopped feeling the effects.
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Future archeology (Score:2, Funny)
You might want to ask AOHell (Score:2)
If they just stop sending me free coasters, I wouldn't mind either. The amount they sent during those last 10 years is enough for the next few decades.
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6-7 years ago I used to get dozens of ISP CDs from companies every week, especially AOL and CompuServe. I haven't had any in the last 3-4 years. Maybe it's because of recycling laws here in the UK. In which case you could soon be living a life free of AOL CDs soon too.
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The golden age of useful recyclable spam.. *sigh*
Re-burn them...sorta (Score:1)
How it worked or whether it was a hoax is anyone's guess. Goog
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I vaguely remember something like this as well. Of course, I never actually saw one or it's results in person, though.
I'm tempted to say it was just a hoax.
Cheat or hoax, you can *not* write to normal CDs (Score:3, Interesting)
How it worked or whether it was a hoax is anyone's guess.
If this was real, then I'm going with what one other user suggested; it wrote updates to the hard disk (or some other reusable medium). I saw software like this for the Amiga. And although it's a useful idea in the context of its time, it's misleading to suggest that this is actually writing to the CD itself.
If that wasn't the case, I'm pretty sure it's a hoax. Why? Because commercial CDs aren't like CD-R/RW; the latter have crystalline layers that respond to heating changes from the laser to form reflec
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reclaim or replace the product/license (Score:3, Interesting)
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Artwork (Score:3, Informative)
Probably. (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a few (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Cover your walls in them. Either side will do. Good for students but abit sad for anyone else. Great for the 1960's Sci-Fi retro look though.
3. Put them at the bottom of a fish pond. Nice reflections in the sun. Probably annoys the hell out the fish though.
(Somewhat more 'out there' ones)
4. Put them on your hub caps for extra bling.
5. Dazzle muggers
6. That trick with microwave ovens.
7. balance furniture on uneven floors.
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Wow
6. That trick with microwave ovens.
That is an awesome suggestion. Except I did that while in high school one night in the industrial microwave at McDonalds and melted the plastic the cd sat upon within a second. One of those, 'I hope no one else notices' moments. The smell of the burnt plastic lingered for a while too.
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Goldfish 1: I'm dazzled! Oh, the water tastes funny. Hi Goldfish 2
Goldfish 2: Hi - hey, what's that bright thing?
Goldfish 1: I'm dazzled! Oh, the water tastes funny. Hi Goldfish 2
Goldfish 2: Hi - hey, what's that bright thing?
Goldfish 1: I'm dazzled! Oh, the water tastes funny. Hi Goldfish 2
Goldfish 2: Hi - hey, what's that bright thing?
Goldfish 1: I'm dazzled! Oh, the water tastes funny. Hi Goldfish 2
Goldfish
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http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/clock3.html [kidsdomain.com]
The horn-rimmed glasses on the yellow smiley face looks great as a clock.....or you can decorate it yourself with acrylic paint.... To top it off, I had a dual-CD case (the ones that would fold out flat, not the ones that resembled a book) and it makes a great clock stand.
Layne
Off-topic, but who knew that MS-BOB was ahead of his time fashion wise...he and HRG from Heros would make a great duo.
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Bully Blinders!
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Why stop at the hubcaps when you can cover the whole car [ultimatechaos.com]?
polycarbonate -- unfortunately not (Score:4, Informative)
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Scrapped, metallised CDs (no cases/paper/etc) at the moment fetch a price of about US$ 1,000 per ton (1,000 kg) in the market in Hong Kong, for complete loads of about 20 ton. I have half a dozen containers with CD scrap on the water on the way to Hong Kong at the moment. Good business.
That said, the material I get is m
If you are bold... (Score:1)
more ways to recycle (Score:1)
You could even use the energy to propel you forward.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportatio n/1980-05-01/Ajax-The-Woodburning-Steam-Powered-Tr uck.aspx [motherearthnews.com]
Yeah, it's as niche as using cooking oil from restaurants, but it might work. And there is always the nice living to be made from saving those interesting things people forget they ever stored on those CDs from seeing the light
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2 Words... (Score:2)
We use the Technotrash can by GreenDisk (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.greendisk.com/ [greendisk.com]
Two words: Art Car! (Score:1)
In Houston, I saw the Art Car Parade and someone shaped the CD's into the shape of fish scales. Gonna have to look for those photos.
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AOL Throne (Score:4, Interesting)
I decorated a Christmas tree one year (Score:2)
CD Lamp! (Score:1, Interesting)
Giant sequins? (Score:2)
Space Mirror (Score:2)
Solar Death Ray! (Score:2)
You can use the CDs to focus the sun's energy to a point and make a solar death ray! It's fun- all you need is a little epoxy!
In most cases... (Score:2, Informative)
Electronic waste is a huge part of our community in the United States and as a result a lot of recycling centers and other facilities have cropped up to try to handle it. Since I work for them, the first place I'd check to locate a facility near me is EARTH911, there is even a computer recycling section being floated right now: Computer Components Recycling [earth911.org].
In many cases they will be reuse and donation centers, or something like ACT [earth911.org]; in the end anything that gives these items a longer lifespan in the co
google (Score:2, Insightful)
Use them to scare birds (Score:2)
How well would they hold up in the outdoors? (Score:2)
A quick search on Google leads one to this page though:
http://www.obviously.com/recycle/guides/hard.html [obviously.com]
where it has some information and lists two addresses which will take them to recycle (and CD-Rs has ~20mg of gold --- who knew?)
William
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Every geek in the US needs one of these around... (Score:4, Informative)
It's a box for any electronic trash that has all the recycling and shipping fees included in its purchase price. Total price is $30 for a 35lbs capacity box, or $40 for a 70lbs capacity one. Or you can get bundles and give them away as gifts to everyone. You can throw anything from CDs to videotapes to laptops to cell phones in there. When it's full, you close it up and ship it (for "free").
Is it worth it? (Score:2)
Old CDs (Score:2)
Can CDs Be Recycled? (Score:2)