Sooner or later, everyone asks themselves the question: What to do with old CDs? The pirated music CDs from the 90s, the drivers of the printer that has long since been disposed of, or even the once beloved maxi CD of the favorite artist that was bought with a lot of money: after the third time of moving, the CDs should now be gone for good. Most of it is trash anyway, or at least ballast. Music is still only streamed, a CD player is possibly no longer in the household. So where to put the old CDs? Still good music CDs are best given away to interested friends or sold at a flea market. All other CDs and DVDs should be disposed of properly. There are several ways to do this.
Tip: In the case of sensitive data, it is advisable to make the data media unreadable by making several scratches across the entire width of the underside.
Important: the CDs must not be disposed of in the household waste because the CDs and DVDs are mostly made of polycarbonate, a high-quality and relatively expensive plastic. Provided they have been collected separately, they can be recycled with little effort. The recycled material can be used, for example, to make products for medical technology, the computer industry, and even CDs and DVDs again. Recycling not only makes economic sense, but also helps to save resources. Source: German Federal Environmental Agency.
- Of course, the easiest thing to do is to put the CDs you no longer need in the box at the next PeekUp pickup. The Advantage: you don't have to take the CDs and DVDs out of their cases. This work is done by the employees at PeekUp. They are then bundled and taken to the recycling center by cargo bike.
- At the various recycling centers of the Berlin Street Cleaning Service (BSR), there are garbage cans for the CDs and DVDs to be disposed of. It is important to note that only the actual data carriers may be placed in the garbage cans, so the CD cases must be removed beforehand. To avoid unnecessary stress on site, you should do this at home. Important notice: The Federal Environment Agency advises:"In view of the small amount of plastic, it does not make sense to drive somewhere especially by car to dispose of CDs and DVDs."
- Larger quantities of CDs can also be disposed of at private disposal companies such as Union Wertstoffhandel. Then (as of summer 2021) you even get money for it, unfortunately only 2 cents per kilogram. The purchase price is so low because, on the one hand, the processing of the raw material CDs is quite expensive and, on the other hand, the crude oil price - from our point of view - is much too low.