America's Television Graveyards

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 91%.

Closed Loop took taxpayer money to not recycle your old TV. CRTs cost more to recycle than the commodities inside them can be sold for, meaning that old TVs have a net negative recycling value.

The business plan for Closed Loop Refining and Recycling was simple: The company was going to be a one-stop shop for CRT recycling in the United States, a dream that has remained elusive since the last US factories making CRTs with recycled glass shut down.

The situation is further complicated because many of Closed Loop's customers were companies that participated in state-run recycling programs, meaning Closed Loop took taxpayer money to not recycle your old TV. The Ohio EPA wrote in inspection documents that Closed Loop did not properly handle hazardous material.

The situation has gotten so bad that, rather than recycle CRTs, many companies have started sending their glass to a company called Kuusakoski Recycling, which is using treated leaded glass as a daily landfill cover in Peoria, Illinois.

Most companies used the money earned from recycling servers, computers, cameras, and video game consoles to offset the recycling of CRT monitors and televisions, which were never very profitable but have always made up a large percentage of the total weight of electronics recycling.

Falling commodity prices have made it difficult to subsidize CRT recycling, and companies like Closed Loop keep prices artificially low by speculating that one day new technologies could make CRT recycling profitable.

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