Mixed Bag of Answers Await Retail Customers Seeking to Recycle Old TVs

Consumers planning to buy a new TV and who deem it important in their purchase decisions to know the retailer’s policy on recycling an old set likely will get a mixed bag of responses when they bring their green questions to the sales floor, our rounds of electronics stores last week in the St. Louis area suggested. We mystery-shopped about a half-dozen stores in the area posing as flat-panel TV customers who didn’t want our 32-inch CRT set sent to landfill or shipped to unscrupulous recyclers. For us, we told salespeople who greeted us, responsible recycling of our old TV was as important a consideration as the price and installation costs of our new flat-panel set in deciding where we were going to buy.

Voluntary recycling measures are the norm for now in Missouri, which enacted an e-waste bill in June 2008. But the law hasn’t taken effect yet, nor does it require the recycling of TVs or ban throwing electronics in the trash. Perhaps that’s why recycling wasn’t front of mind among many of the salespeople we encountered. We also didn’t see a lot of detail in the answers we got when we asked whether the retailer would help us dispose of our old TV and, if yes, what might become of the set after it was hauled away.

The most environmentally sound and consumer-friendly feedback we got was at Best Buy’s Brentwood, Mo., store, where a salesman offered us free recycling of our old TV with any new flat-panel purchase over $1,000. If we wanted to buy a less expensive set, we could buy a $99 haul-away package, which would cover the removal of all the old TVs in our home we wanted to get rid of, the salesman told us. His only caveat was that Best Buy couldn’t take responsibility for removing a TV from the home if there was a strong likelihood of causing property damage. For example, he said, Best Buy wouldn’t sell anyone the $99 package to carry a 32-inch Trinitron down a spiral staircase.

When we asked what Best Buy does with the discarded TVs it collects, the salesman said our old set likely would be sent to one of several recyclers the chain partners with nationally. He referred us to Best Buy’s website for a fuller accounting of the chain’s recycling policies. There, we found a detailed description of Best Buy’s “TV Haul-Away” program in which the chain says it “will remove an old or obsolete television at no charge from a consumer’s home when a new product is purchased and is being delivered to the home by Best Buy Home Delivery or Geek Squad."

But there was no mention at the site of the $99 package we were told about in the store for new sets costing $999 or less. Best Buy partners “directly with a short list of highly qualified and respected recycling companies who ensure all products collected for recycling are handled responsibly,” the site says. “These recycling companies meet our standards, and we encourage them to examine and consider additional third-party standards for responsible practices, such as the EPA’s R2 program, or the Basel Action Network’s eStewards certification listings,” it says.

The Sound Room, a two-store AV specialty chain, held a recycling event last year in which customers brought in 300 old TVs to be recycled responsibly, said a salesman at the Creve Coeur, Mo., store when we inquired about the chain’s recycling policies. But The Sound Room has no plans that he knows of to run another event, the salesman told us. Customers wanting to discard an old CRT TV now can have it recycled as part of a $150 delivery package that includes drop off of the new TV and haul-away of the old one, but no installation, he said. The Sound Room ships the old TVs it collects to EPC Inc., he said. EPC, based in St. Charles, Mo., is a BAN-certified eStewards recycler, according to both the EPC and BAN websites.

Another nearby AV specialist, Hi-Fi Fo-Fum in Richmond Heights, Mo., has no recycling program and has seldom been asked about it, a salesman there told us. The store charges $70 to deliver and install a new TV, which includes hooking it up to cable or satellite, setting up a basic remote control and training the customer on what the new set can do, he said. If the customer asks, the delivery people will haul away an old TV, but the store would rather that customers donate it to a school or charity or put it in another room of the house, he said. As for the fate of that old TV that Hi-Fi Fo-Fum does occasionally haul away, “we're likely to toss it in a dumpster,” the salesman said.

At an Ultimate Electronics store in Ballwin, Mo., customers can buy a $99 installation package that also includes haul-away of an old TV, a salesman there said. When we asked what would happen to our old TV, the salesman responded it would be picked up by a “third party” that’s not affiliated with Ultimate. When we pressed to find out more information about this third party, the salesman politely told us he never had been asked the question, but said he would try to find out. He left and returned a few minutes later to identify the third party as Korn, or Corn, Recycling, a local firm. We checked many resources, including, ban.org, eEarth911.com and CEA’s MyGreenElectronics.com, but turned up nothing locally. Through a Google search we did find a Korn Recycling, but it was based in Albstadt, Germany. Ultimate’s website lists a vast array of TV installation options and prices, but none mentions hauling away or recycling an old TV, even at any price.

Wal-Mart customers have no options available for recycling an old TV, said a salesman in the TV department at the chain’s Maplewood, Mo., store. He told us as a suggestion to take our old TV to Lowe’s because he knows from personal experience that Lowe’s will haul away old appliances. Wal-Mart posters on the endcaps in the Maplewood store touted a new $99 TV installation service offer. The offer has been a success since launching in January, the salesman said. But he said he didn’t know if the $99 package includes hauling away an old TV for recycling.