Recycle Your CDs and Jewel Cases
Photo by zharth, under a Creative Commons license
Several months ago, tired of the clutter that our CDs were making in our hobbit hole of a living room, I purchased a few cotton-and-polyester (read: not vinyl, to which I’m vehemently opposed) CD wallets from Ikea to corral and organize our music collection. The difference good media storage makes is astounding. Just one problem: We’re now left with stacks and stacks of jewel cases to contend with—many of them scratched or broken from careless handling over the years—as well as sampler and product promo discs we doubt anyone’s champing at the bit to lift from our hands.
CD and DVD jewel cases are made from molded polystyrene (or sometimes, PVC) and not easily recyclable, so tossing them into the recycling bin and crossing your fingers isn’t going to cut it. You have a few options, however. If you’re of the crafty persuasion, you can squeeze another 14 uses out of them before you give your jewel cases the kiss off. GreenDisk will also accept your castoff cases (for $6.95 for every 20 pounds, minus shipping), which it’ll then use as raw material for its own line of recycled jewel cases.
Disc recycling isn’t a pipe dream, either. The hub and I used to take scratched-up and damaged CDs and DVDs, along with their cases, to 3R Living in Brooklyn. Because we live in Jersey City, it was a bit of a schlep, so I was pretty excited when my pal Siel clued me into the fact that Best Buy now recycles used discs, if not their jewel cases. The CD Recycling Center of America is another place that will take your used CDs and DVDs at no charge.
I prefer listening to tunes on online music stations like Pandora these days; otherwise, I buy songs off iTunes and dispense with the packaging altogether—sometimes, technology does live up to its promise.
Jen - The Alienspouse said,
September 2, 2008 at 11:31 am
I had the exact same problem when I moved from London, UK, to North Carolina and needed to transport all my CDs and DVDs.
In the end I put an ad up on Greencycle and it turned out there were several community art projects that were desperate for jewel cases. I have no idea what they wanted them for though.
John said,
September 2, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Thank you for this! I have been trying to find a place that would take my CDs for a long time.
And welcome back!
shelle said,
September 4, 2008 at 7:52 am
That is just what I was looking for. I did throw them away in the past which made me feel bad, but I have been saving those along with 5,7 plastics hoping that one day they would be recyclable. Great news that they are all recyclable now just not widely.
Thanks for coming back :)
kettunainen said,
September 27, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Can you share the name of the cd wallets that you got from IKEA? I’d like to pare down the amount of space my cds and dvds are taking up.
And thank you for all the researching you’re sharing with us. Enjoy it while it lasts — your world is gonna be flipped inside out when the baby comes. (bet you get tired of hearing that…) Congratulations and good luck! =)