Jewel-Use Technology

Umbra on recycling CD jewel cases 5

Dear Umbra,

I've been Googling all over to find a place where I can recycle old CD cases, to no avail. I'm moving soon and would really like to find an environmentally safe way to dispose of these things. Do you know of any place they can be dropped off, or any other alternatives?

Melissa
Edgewater, N.J.

Dearest Melissa,

Here's an answer not just for you, but for all those readers who write in with insanely specific recycling problems: If you've called your municipal recycling experts and Googled all over the place, consider that you've done your best and call it a day. First, CD cases (just one example) are small and light, which is a good indicator that they should be low on your eco-savior priority list. Second, plastics recycling is often just briefly down-cycling: No. 2 bottles get one or two more shots at life before they're thrown out. If you can't find a way to recycle something, and you've searched in vain for info about a Plastics Reclamation Club or such, there may be no market for whatever you're trying to revivify. You may have to give up.

However, I can hold out a ray of hope in Melissa's case, even though I know it means I'll keep getting questions about recycling tiny objects. There is a company in Missouri that recycles "techno-trash": GreenDisk. Actually, I can hold out two rays of hope. The second is something I stumbled across on the Internet: a band thanking everyone who helped it cut costs by sending in old CD cases. Somewhere out there, an indie group is cutting the eco-album edge, perhaps with such sleeper hits as "I'm High on the Density of Your Polyethylene" and "Your P-E-T Is No. 1 With Me." Keep an eye out, and perhaps add "donate" to your Google search terms.

Tunefully,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-living questions to Umbra.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

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  1. bluarcher Posted 3:08 am
    25 Feb 2007

    Re-Using CD Jewel BoxesI found a use for all the jewel boxes I don't want.  I work as I.T. and never have enough boxes for people when they burn CD's.  So I brought the ones I don't want to work and they get used there.
    Ed B.

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  2. lisabrown212 Posted 7:11 am
    22 May 2007

    I found a place to send in used cd jewel casesI had the same problem, not wanting to throw out my jewel cases, but I found a list of places you can mail them in to be reused:
    http://www.fcgov.com/recycling/centers.php?ID=70

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  3. juanfe Posted 4:41 am
    09 Feb 2008

    Try cdrecyclingcenter.orgAm about to try a shipment to CD Recycling Center in Salem, NH (USA). Haven't used them yet, but they seem like a viable outfit. They'll take CD and DVDs and their jewel cases and will

    a) reuse cases that are in good shape by selling them

    b) grind up the disks and recover the gold and other metals for reuse,

    b) grind up broken jewel cases and the non-metal parts of the disks for downcycling into durable goods (yes, shipped to China, but their "why would someone pay $12,000 to ship something to China and dump it" argument on what happens to the pastics makes sense.

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  4. maxsteel Posted 4:32 am
    06 Mar 2008

    Try http://www.polysource.starmaxca.comthis company called Polysource Inc I think, this is a local Southern California CD recycling company that recycles CDs,DVDs,and jewel cases and offer free pickup service if there is alot. I believe they also ship these material to a foreign country to be recycled and reused.

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  5. Everglades80 Posted 6:41 am
    16 Jun 2008

    cd case muralSaw this and thought it was neet - cd mural. I've got a huge stack of jewel cases after moving my collection to my new cd cases.
    I'm waiting on a print of a photo I sent to flickr to come, but I'll post a picture when its done.

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