Green Music Week: CD Recycling

Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.

Tip #4: Recycle Your CDs

If you've moved your music collection to a computer or iPod, keep those old CDs and jewel cases out of the landfill. Recycle discs by mailing them to the CD Recycling Center of America or find a new home for your tunes by giving them away on Freecycle. You can find local recycling centers at Earth911.

Share your tips: What are your ideas for creative reuse of old CDs?

Comments

[Joseph Logan]

I contributed my old CD's to the local library and to my high school.

[Maureen Murphy]

You can also sell them to SecondSpin.com. They buy and sell used cds, and are a great source for finding old discs, or hard-to-find music.

[Alyssa]

Art projects! I've seen old CDs add a great touch to costumes, and I've seen a handmade chandelier-type light fixture.

[Amanda]

A lot of non-profit organizations will have a "Book Fair" fundraiser where they collect gently used books, audiobooks, cds, dvds, and possibly VHSs and cassette tapes. I know the Animal Humane Society of Minnesota raised like $20,000 doing this and Feline Rescue of St. Paul has one lined up in August. So between the 2 I have gotten ride of almost all my cd collection! But I do have several that are too scratched to donate so I'm going to send them off to be recycled.

[Pamela Anderegg]

I use CD's under my candles. It makes a pretty glitter at night time dinner parties AND it keeps the wax from staining the tablecloth!

[Maura]

Can anyone suggest how I can recycle non-music CD's that are used? I work in the construction industry in Falls Church, VA where many contractors use CD's for storing the project documents for each job. Once each job is done with, the CD is of no use anymore. I have a large stack of obsolete CD's that is piling up. I would rather recycle the CD's and their cases instead of adding them to the locally stressed landfills. Any suggestions?

[Christina]

We donate ours to the library. They can be enjoyed by everyone and we get a tax write off.

[Kate]

For non-music CD's, try your local municipality for e Waste disposal days. Also try searching your state's Department of Environmental Protection website--they should have a list of all solid waste companies, contact info, and what types of waste they will accept. If after this there still isn't a local solution, try a company like GreenDisk.com.

[Kristin]

Tie the cd's on string and hang them around the garden to keep birds away from your berries. Works great!

[Linda A.]

I want to hang on to my CDs because I haven't gone the MP3 route yet (maybe I never will), but old CDs can be used for craft projects, for those who are so inclined. For example, some years back, I saw CDs that had been made into clocks using a kit of a clock mechanism, hands, and numerals that you could get in craft stores. The other day, on Rachael Ray's program, I saw old CDs being used as reflectors for a string of Christmas lights by placing the CD's hole over the socket, and then screwing the bulb into the socket through that hole.

[Rich Legault]

If you have copied a CD onto your computer, it is illegal for you to give, dontae or sell the physical media to anyone else, unless you delete the files. Paying for the media is what granted you the legal right to hear the music in the first place. Period.

It is legal to destroy/recycle the media of course.

[Jenny]

Make CD mobiles by pasting 2 of them together and hanging at different heights from a circular ring!!! They make amazing rainbow refractions. You can also decorate with glitter or glowing paint... theyre almost too easy to make.
Try it or donate to your favorite school!

[Susan]

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