Don’t Throw Your TV Away — Here’s What You Can Do Instead

Unfortunately, there are a lot of reasons why someone might consider throwing out an old TV and just forgetting about it. Maybe you have a few dead pixels that are ruining your watching experience. Maybe the picture has gotten fuzzy and unwatchable, a problem nobody wants to deal with in the era of high definition. Whatever the problem may be, throwing a TV in the garbage or leaving it on the side of the road will never be the best idea for getting rid of it.

If you want to be more responsible with your old TVs, you have a few ways to dispose of them safely that benefit a lot of people. This article will explain what you can do instead of throwing away your TV. We hope that this guide will help you see that there are better alternatives for your TV, even when it’s past its prime. Remember that our goal is to keep these TVs out of the trash cycle, and we’ll go into why that’s important as well.

Why You Shouldn’t Throw Out Your TV

Depending on where you live, it could be flat-out illegal to throw your TV in the trash. While different areas have various laws regarding the practice, there are many good reasons why they wouldn’t want a TV in their garbage or landfills. TVs present a few problems when they mix in with regular trash, so we want to avoid that as much as possible.

What is it about TVs that make them unsuitable for standard trash disposal? The makeup of their interior components is usually the problem. Older TVs, such as the forgotten tube TVs of the distant past, can contain dangerous chemicals and parts that would harm the environment if they made their way into the trash cycle. Even the more modern LCD screens may have these chemicals or parts that should never find themselves inside a landfill.

You can find a number of heavy metals inside of old TVs—the kind of metals that don’t ever break down in a landfill. Instead, these metals will simply corrode over time. This corrosion can find its way into the soil, water, and even the air, polluting the area far more than it should. Hard metals tend to linger in the soil, which means that they can slowly pollute the ground, possibly even finding their way into the roots of crops or into waterways that we pull from for drinking water.

Thankfully, you don’t need to resort to throwing your old TV in a landfill just to get rid of it. In fact, there are even ways to keep it for continued use or put the parts to good use somewhere else.

What You Can Do Instead

We’ve already established why we don’t want to throw these TVs away, so what options do we have for dealing with an older TV that needs some work? This section will cover the main things you can do to your TV besides throwing it away. Some of these options will take more work than others. The one you choose will depend on how much time you wish to spend, how much work you’re willing to put in, and whether you want to keep the TV for yourself once you’re done.

Repair It Yourself

If you consider yourself a handy person or someone who isn’t afraid to open up a few electronics, you may be able to repair your TV on your own. This option is obviously the best if you still want to keep your TV but it isn’t working as well as it should be. Repairing your TV isn’t as difficult as some people think it is. The most important thing about repairing a TV is making sure you have the right parts to replace what needs replacing. That’s where we come in.

Here at TV Parts for Sale, we sell everything you could need to get your TV up and running again. Whether you need a singular part that has malfunctioned inside your TV or a TV board kit to replace your main board completely, we can help you find what you need to get that TV back in working order. Even if you’ve never repaired a TV before, learning isn’t the grueling process you may assume it to be. Once you have the parts you need, it’s fairly simple to take out the old and put in the new.

Resell It

If the TV is still working, you have every right to resell it to someone else or use it in a trade to get something better. Older TVs are common items at events like yard and garage sales. With summer coming up, now could be the perfect time to start one up and recoup a little bit of that money. Otherwise, you can always go online to find a group that focuses on finding expensive items for a good price. If your TV still works, just with a few kinks, you might be surprised to see how much you can make on it, as others will repair it themselves.

Donate It

Another good solution that will prevent a TV from hitting a landfill is to donate it. Donating a TV takes a little bit of work to make sure that your TV qualifies wherever you want to donate it, but it’s a great way to ensure that it gets into the hands of someone who needs it. TV donations can help those less fortunate, and it’s a much better option than simply throwing it out.

Recycle the Parts

If the TV is beyond repair, your best bet is to recycle it for its parts. Even a busted TV has useful parts to salvage. You can either do this yourself or find the nearest e-waste recycling center. These facilities have become a lot more common as technology continues to grow exponentially, so finding one shouldn’t be difficult. By harvesting the useful parts of an old TV and recycling the parts that are dangerous to the environment, you make it easier to dispose of the TV’s inert parts.

Throwing away your old TV should be the last option on your mind. With so many other opportunities, you really don’t need to toss it in the trash. If you want to make that TV new again, check out our parts here at TV Parts for Sale. We’re sure to have what you need to get your TV working.