Can CDs Be Recycled?

An anonymous reader asks: "I was recently doing a closet-cleaning and came across literally hundreds of old software CDs that are no longer usable — both manufactured CDs and CD-Rs. Note that by 'not usable', I mean that many of them simply couldn't be read anymore, possibly due to the fact that they'd been stored rather ineptly (no, I wasn't responsible for how they were stored). It seems wrong to just throw them out, but are there other things that can be done with them that will allow their raw materials to be reused in some way?Is it possible to reclaim CDs for raw materials?"

Re:They make great coasters

[RabidJackal]

I forget the link, but I remember some guy began making carvings out of his CDs into the shape of animals and objects.

On a side note, I find the best ninja stars are made from CD-Rs. the commercial ones usually have an ink layer that flakes off everywhere and just looks untidy when its done.

reclaim or replace the product/license

[mqx]

Depending upon what CD it is, and who the manufacturer is, you may be able to reclaim the license or a replacement CD. For example, you can do this with PowerDVD if you lose the license or the CD is damaged. Even if the software is not worth anything to you, it may be to someone else. If any of the CDs are for software of some original/current value, it may be worth taking the time to look into this. You could sell them on eBay for an earner.

Here's a few

[clickclickdrone]

1. You can make mobiles for a baby - nice interesting colours one side, shiny reflections the other. Get half a dozen hanging up on a coathanger arrangement and you have one happy baby.
2. Cover your walls in them. Either side will do. Good for students but abit sad for anyone else. Great for the 1960's Sci-Fi retro look though.
3. Put them at the bottom of a fish pond. Nice reflections in the sun. Probably annoys the hell out the fish though.
(Somewhat more 'out there' ones)
4. Put them on your hub caps for extra bling.
5. Dazzle muggers
6. That trick with microwave ovens.
7. balance furniture on uneven floors.

Re:Dunno about Europe.

[Corporate Troll]

I bring them to the recycling centre like almost every other plastic I collect. Nobody ever complained. I'll look if they have a separate container for it next time I go there. There are employees that do the sorting for us. (I like going there, especially for dumpster diving in the electronics container. Nuggets I found there are a P-IV 1.9GHz and an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz... both in working order. I don't even bother taking P-III class machines anymore... *grin*)

I don't live in Denmark though...

Re:Yes

[Gr8Apes]

Ah good! A place to forward all those AOL CDs to.

AOL Throne

[iangoldby]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the AOL Throne [stupidco.com] yet.

CD Lamp!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://photocreations.ca/cd_lamp/ [photocreations.ca]

DON'T BREATHE THE VAPORS!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years back I had an "unwise microwave oven experiments" party. Large, powerful old microwave that was headed for the dumpster and a keg of beer, everybody brings something to microwave.

The laptop backlight and 10" fluorescent tube were... bright. Like, searchlight bright. And strangely enough some of the most interesting effects were done with food, like split grapes and an unopened bag of marshmallows. We never achieved a stable plasma (we made some that lasted a few seconds, though) mostly because of the diffculty in controlling air currents.

Anyway, we fried a lot of CDs, because they look tres cool in the microwave. My buddy Pete and I each got a slight whiff of the vapor produced by this (we were outside at the time) and it was a week or so before we stopped feeling the effects.

Re:Dunno about Europe.

[KlaymenDK]

Last time I went to the recycling centre with some cases of floppies and cds, the went directly into the "small combustibles" dumpster ... so not exactly recycled.

The folks down there throw tantrums if you're caught dumpster diving, which is sad because I think direct re-use is better than eventual recycling, no? I did manage to salvage a couple of Nixies from some weird old scientific instrument, though.

Re:Dunno about Europe.

[Corporate Troll]

I'll take a closer look at what they do with the CDs next time that I'm there. Promised. Still, if one googles fro CD Recycling, it seems to exist.

Oh, they weren't happy to find out when I got caught dumpster diving. Now, I just look around if there are any employees around. I don't understand it either: re-use should be better.

Re:Here's a few

[Detritus]

The trick is to put a small glass of water in with the CD. That makes the magnetron happy. Put the CD on top of the glass.

Re:Yes

[bradkittenbrink]

I so thought that was going to be a link to http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe &video=movie [willitblend.com]

Re:Dunno about Europe.

[ProppaT]

There really is no such thing as cd recycling. The metal in the foil is considered toxic, and there's no real way to reuse the plastic because of the foil inside, so they're more than likely just disintegrated...unless there's some way to reuse the dust if it's pulverized (which I really doubt).

Cheat or hoax, you can *not* write to normal CDs

[Dogtanian]

How it worked or whether it was a hoax is anyone's guess.

If this was real, then I'm going with what one other user suggested; it wrote updates to the hard disk (or some other reusable medium). I saw software like this for the Amiga. And although it's a useful idea in the context of its time, it's misleading to suggest that this is actually writing to the CD itself.

If that wasn't the case, I'm pretty sure it's a hoax. Why? Because commercial CDs aren't like CD-R/RW; the latter have crystalline layers that respond to heating changes from the laser to form reflective/non-reflective areas, the former are actually *stamped* with 3D pits and lands.

Both reflect/deflect the reading laser beam in the same way (in most players), so the discs can be read in the same machines. However, there's no way you're going to *change* the contents of a stamped CD in anything like the same manner as you would with a CD-R. It's about as likely as a floppy disk drive's magnetic head being able to rewrite the grooves of a 7" vinyl single.

In fact, you'd actually have to (somehow) melt or reconfigure the plastic of the CD itself, and since it was never designed for this, I've no idea how you'd do it accurately. It would likely be a horrifically expensive (and pointless) lab curiosity at best, and no-one in their right mind would try to market it in the face of CD-R.

Hoax, hoax, hoaxy hoax....

Re:polycarbonate -- unfortunately not

[wvmarle]

Let me tell you that polycarbonate scrap is one of the most valuable scraps around. As long as one keeps it pure! And even if mixed a bit and in big enough pieces we can sort it out in China.

Scrapped, metallised CDs (no cases/paper/etc) at the moment fetch a price of about US$ 1,000 per ton (1,000 kg) in the market in Hong Kong, for complete loads of about 20 ton. I have half a dozen containers with CD scrap on the water on the way to Hong Kong at the moment. Good business.

That said, the material I get is mostly post industrial: rejects and leftovers from the factories, shredded to destroy the copyrights. What happens to the post consumer materials I don't know really.

Wouter.