recycling things

GiveItBack

So, I just broke a digicamera that I love (lcd cracked). It;s only 8 months old, but it'll cost about £100 to fix, and I can get another one for that.

But since we can recycle phones, can we recycle cameras? I have another one that gradually fell apart (its about 4 years old now), ad it would be great to do something with them.

oldtoolie

The thing about phones for charity collections is that most of the phones still work, so they are not torn to bits for recycling but refurbished and reused by people who can't afford or don't want the latest status symbol.

So your old broken cameras will stay broken. Please don't give them to a charity because the charity will have to pay for proper disposal.

Proper disposal? That's a hot issue too. Vast quantities of broken electronics are exported back to Asia. (Including much from your local council waste sites) Then recyclers, often operating under appalling conditions of contamination, pick over and and melt down electronic parts for gold, copper and other metals.

So the best advice if you want to save money and be green is to buy things that last and buy things second-hand. What to do with it at the end-of-life is an open question.

GiveItBack

thanks, yeah It was never going to go to a shop or anything, I just wondered if anyone did dismantle and reuse parts (ideally not in poor conditions, although I know it happens).

Sadly it's only about 8 months old, but has received one too many knocks so the LCD screen has gone, and it's a lot to fix it (i can just get another the same for less). Bigger and bigger screens equals more and more fragile, (but then if they didn't break, no-one would buy new ones, and camera companies would go the way of milk float companies.)

AndysDad

You could always put it on your local 'Freecycle, site and state that it may be useful to someone looking for spare parts for a similar camera.