I saw a news story a few weeks ago that the City of Cincinnati has set very strict rules about what can be thrown in the garbage, and more importantly, how this garbage must be attractively displayed for pick-up by what must be very discerning Solid Waste Engineers.
Most people will probably try to comply. But with significant fines for violations, the laws of unintended consequences means that alternate disposal methods are likely.
When I get in the mood to clean and purge, I really get in the mood to clean and purge. Since moving into this house nearly five years ago, there was quite a bit of electronic paraphernalia that I had never used, and other sundries which were likely never going to be used again. Having a few hours last weekend, I went through much of this stuff to do a cathartic purge.
I had several storage areas where old computer hardware and software was collected and it was time to get rid of it. After deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, I had a few piles to throw away, recycle, and unknown. In the unknown pile were things like my palm pilot - I was unsure if it still had my information on it. A hammer solved that dilemma, and it went into the trash pile.
I similarly destroyed the dual hard drives in my old desktop computer. One saw several death blows with a hammer, the other was disassembled and the magnetic platter removed and shattered.
While destroying the hard drives, my memory was brought back (pun intended) to some relatively inexpensive Sun Sparc stations that the federal government was selling about 18 years ago. These were such a good deal, that the research lab I was working in at the time looked into them. As government computers, they had to have the hard drives removed which was understandable. However, the bureaucrats also required the volatile RAM to be removed. I can only surmise some ignorant government idiot manager was worried that RAM may secretly retain information. Unfortunately, Sparc-compatible RAM was very expensive and cost nearly as much as the computers were worth. Our lab chose not to buy these very expensive, cheap computers.
In my piles of electronic stuff to get rid of were two CRT monitors. These went along with my older desktop computer. I really don't see value in a desktop computer anymore as I don't play computer games. I used to be an avid gamer, but like a quantum switch, one day I couldn't take it anymore and stopped, nearly overnight.
I also had several computer games to get rid of. Some of these go back to Windows 3.1 days (Sam n' Max Hit the Road). There is minimal value of these on Ebay, and I'm not sure that a disadvantaged kid somewhere will have his life improved by a good copy of Outlaws (circa 1998), so these were discarded. As so much of my life was spent playing Doom II, Quake, Quake II and Unreal, I kept these - likely to be discarded at some future purge...
Which brings me back to my CRT computer monitors and what is the "right thing" to do with them. There is a very limited market for reuse as monitors. The world is now flat. The CRT market is probably on the same scale as reuse for artistic purposes. While creative, I'm not sure how many monitor fish tanks the world really needs.
The best option for these monitors was to recycle them appropriately. I went to the county's website to see what options are available. There were several listed options for computer monitors, even specifically denoting CRT monitors. Sadly, the website is, at best, very out of date. After traipsing around with two heavy monitors, nobody would take them for recycling, despite my willingness to also accompany them by a nominal fee to dispose of them properly. One place listed on the county website, which may have been where I dropped off an old TV a few years ago, was apparently not quite as conscientious as they claimed to be...
After trying to do "the right thing," for quite some time, I was frustrated. I (thankfully) do not live under the authoritative regime of Cincinnati. I called my local refuse company and they said they will happily take and landfill CRT monitors and televisions. I won't know until I get my next solid waste disposal bill whether this option came with a charge for it, but the nice woman I talked to on the phone said that if there wasn't very much trash and they weren't that big, the monitors would be picked up for free. I'm often surprised at the mountains of trash some people leave out on garbage day; at my house, I usually have one very nearly empty, skinny, plastic garbage can. The cost for this seems ridiculous compared to my neighbor's piles, as the garbage company charges a set fee per week per house. I guess being able to throw away mountains comes at a cost.
I really don't feel too good about landfilling two old, working computer monitors. But my options were limited. I could:
a) put it in the basement where it will be harder and more expensive to throw away some time in the future.
b) continue to drive these monitors all over the world trying to find somewhere to take them, while realizing they still may never be taken care of appropriately.
c) legally dispose of them in the landfill thanks to the benevolence of the solid waste company that serves my rural township.
I suppose there is also a d) option. I could, under the dark cover of night, throw them into an adhoc dump. There is a ravine created by a small creek about two miles from where I live. Jack-wad disgusting people dump all manner of stuff there. About a year ago, the county government cleaned it all up and put a sign telling people not to recreate the pile of garbage (with apologies to Arlo Guthrie), but it is growing once again.
I never even thought of choosing this option, but this WILL BE the result of Cincinnati's new Draconian garbage policy. Nearly all people want to do the right thing, but every barrier put in front of the right thing will lower the relative energy needed for people to do the wrong thing. When it is easier and cheaper to risk dumping that old ratty couch behind an abandoned building, it will happen. It is sad that high and mighty city government, such as Cincinnati City Council, is too blind to see this irrefutable law of unintended consequences.
I remember when I got my first really big CRT computer monitor. I had just built my computer system after researching and buying all individual components. It was a dual boot system - OS/2 and Windows NT - I guess I was really a glutton for punishment then. I spent countless hours staring at that monitor while I played Quake II and Unreal. That first large monitor died many years ago and was recycled at a time when it was relatively easy to do so.
Now, I can't imagine ever buying another CRT screen. My personal laptop is an old derided netbook, but it is small, robust and does everything I need.
The two monitors will likely live on under a mountain of garbage. If there is any solace in this poor, but legal, option, it is only that they may be resurrected one day when we turn to mining landfills for the materials they contain in a future post-apocalypse. And maybe that future will look just like Quake II.
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