Oh where oh where can we donate pre-recorded VHS cassette tapes ? !

mjm3346

Silvertabby said:

Edi81 said:

I had a clear out and charity shops refused DVDs. 

Unless they are genuine rarities they will sadly need to go to landfill. 

DVDs or video tapes?

I use our old dvds as bird scarers - 4 lengths of string, each with 5 or 6 dvds knotted in at regular intervals, are hanging in my open greenhouse door.  Stops the birds flying in and stripping my grape vine (mostly).

Video tape can be used in place of string for tying dvds/cds etc (last time I looked - before covid - dvds were still for sale in local charity shops) does look like they are on the way out though - Just 300 million DVDs are expected to be sold worldwide this year, down from an average of 2 billion every year between 2005 and 2009.

Grumpy_chap

Edi81 said:

I had a clear out and charity shops refused DVDs. 

Unless they are genuine rarities they will sadly need to go to landfill. 

Does it have to be landfill, or can they go for recycling?  Lots of plastic in a VHS tape.  We have 'mixed recycling' waste collection.

Rodders53

Grumpy_chap said: 
Does it have to be landfill, or can they go for recycling?  Lots of plastic in a VHS tape.  We have 'mixed recycling' waste collection.

You need to check your Council's policy / capability.  Ours here doesn't take any 'hard plastics' (nor it seems scrap metal/screws etc.,.) in the recycling bin.

Our last council wasn't so picky and I dismantled a pile of VHS to plastics and metal rollers/pins/screws into the recycling and the reels of tape went in the black.  That was over 6 years ago.  No-one wanted VHS even then.

Kimcabincrew

Have you thought about asking the British museum?

scoot65

I'd just put them in the bin. I had load of music cassette tapes, a lot were home recordings. Again, I just threw them in the bin. Presumably they went to landfil or incineration or whatever the local council use to get rid of rubbish.

Frogletina

After a family bereavement we had to clear out hundreds of videotapes.

They were put onto the Olio app which is a free  site and one person came and took all of them.