Avalanche of cast-off TVs expected

By Peter H. Milliken | June 7, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Many TVs that still work will be thrown away, says one recycler.

YOUNGSTOWN — An avalanche of cast-off analog televisions is expected after analog TV broadcasting ends Friday, say those engaged in their reuse and recycling.

“There’s going to be millions and millions of these in the next couple of months across the country being disposed of,” said Gary Piskor, owner of Val-E-Tronics, an electronics recycling company at 1740 Mahoning Ave.

“It’s a shame that these TVs are being thrown away. It’s hard for me to throw away something that works. So, if I can find somebody that can use it, whether they buy it or it’s donated, it’s a better way to go,” Piskor said.

Recently, Piskor has been receiving three to five analog televisions a week, but he expects that number to grow substantially after Friday’s cessation of analog broadcasting.

“Oh yes. I’m expecting it, and I’m dreading it,” said Piskor, whose business is devoted primarily to recycling computer equipment.

Jim Petuch, director of the Mahoning County Green Team, also said he expects many more TVs to be recycled in the future.

A Feb. 7 electronics recycling drive at the county’s South Side Annex drew more than 1,000 vehicles and generated a tractor-trailer load of TVs to be recycled.

“About a third of everything coming in was television sets,” he recalled.

That drive occurred just 10 days before the previously announced Feb. 17 cessation of analog TV broadcasting, which was postponed to Friday, Petuch noted.

Sarah Ellis, manager of the YSU re:Create program, which promotes materials exchange and reuse, and Jodi Harmon, a spokeswoman for the Easter Seal Society, which sells donated TVs in a garage sale, said they expect a surge in cast-off analog TVs after Friday.

“I think that people won’t know what to do with them,” Harmon said.

“I feel the government has really let us down,” Piskor said. “The government passed this law to change everything [from analog to digital TV broadcasting], but they didn’t pass a law or provide us a means for disposal of these televisions,” Piskor observed.

More deconstruction facilities for recycled TVs should be built and funded through government grants or loans, Piskor said.

There isn’t much of a market for the parts of a television, Piskor said. TV circuit boards contain a low grade of solder, from which very little silver can be recovered, he explained.

Nobody wants the lead-lined cathode-ray tube, he said. “You can’t recycle the glass with the lead in it. There are systems to recover the lead, but nobody’s doing it,” he observed.

Piskor said he has found several local outlets that try to resell the working TVs he receives. He donates working TVs, whose quality isn’t good enough to re-sell, to local charities.

A former TV repairman, who was laid off from an auto-related industry, Piskor founded Val-e-Tronics last December.

His shop, located in a former auto body shop and ambulance garage, has two part-time employees and does little TV repair work.

“I will attempt to fix them if it’s something that can be fixed quickly and easily. But there’s really not enough money in that,” he said. “The hours you would spend working on the TV don’t justify what you can get out of it for resale.”

Piskor trucks the nonworking TVs he receives to a Canton firm, to which he pays $10 or $15 per TV. That firm tries to repair them, and it deconstructs nonrepairable TVs and sends the lead-laden glass cathode-ray tubes to a Columbus glass factory.

“It’s sad to see a good working television go to the junk pile. So we try, if we can find a way, to find them a new home, if they work,” Piskor concluded.