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Compact Disc Recycling

The Compact disc was launched in 1983 with 800,000 units released in the USA alone. By 1990, that number reached 1 billion discs per year. Currently we manufacture almost 30 billion discs per year. Tens of millions of these discs yearly are finding their way into our landfills and incinerators. This is because people are not aware on what to do with them, and for the most part, just throw them away. This is not good for our environment. We are utilizing several natural resources from the Earth to manufacture these discs, but we are not replenishing them.

Why does a compact disc become not needed? Well there’ are several reasons including:

• Unwanted content
• Obsolete content
• Cracks, scratches, or blemishes from improper use or storage (Can be repaired)
• Manufacturing more than required for a specific product or purpose
• Defective product whether it be via the manufacturing process or simple bad content on the disc
• Outdated need of use, software revisions are famous for this
• Companies flooding the world with marketing discs in direct mail campaigns to introduce their products . We all get them in the mail.
• There are many, many more reasons.

We live in a world that is focused on commerce. Commerce focuses more on the manufacturing of items, more than the recycling of them…

Plastic is not a natural resource, but when recycled, it does save trees…

Some manufactured products are man made. Man made items as those that utilize “natural elements” and combine them into a new form of unnatural products that will not naturally decompose back into the Earth. Plastic is one of these man made products. CDs, DVD’s, jewels cases, etc. are plastic products that will not decompose naturally. They need to be recycled into raw material for manufacturing of other products, which will require fewer natural resources from Earth to make these new products. The basic raw elements of plastic are oil and gases, along with combinations of other elements and processes to create the final plastic. There are many types of plastic, but for intent and purpose, I am basically referring to polycarbonate and polystyrene which is the basic plastic used in the compact disc industry.

But plastic is not an element of natural state. It requires reuse. As a matter of fact, some plastic reuse is saving OUR MOST IMPORTANT NATURAL RESOURCE – TREES. More and more products are being created and manufactured out of recycled plastic, such as composite decking, posts, fences, and other home building materials, which would previously been built from tree wood. So please recycle your Compacts Disc’s, DVD’s and Game Disc’s. If you want to keep them out of the recycling stream have them professionally restored at www.discrepairservices.com.

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