Back in the day, CRTs were all the rage. For those o’ you that don’t know, CRTs are those big, heavy monitors that used to be all over the place. All the cool kids had them. But no more. Now, people can get flat-panel monitors for a lot cheaper than they used to be. This has led to perfectly good (except for the fact they weigh a ton) CRT monitors being thrown away. Which leads to what I saw yesterday…

Discovery of the Discarded CRTs

I was leaving work when I happened to see some mess next to the dumpster. I took a closer look, and fought down a wave of nausea as I realized that another office was throwing away two old CRT monitors. With tears in me eyes, I gingerly lifted them and brought them into my car, hushing their whimpers as I buckled them in.

Resuscitation of the CRT Monitors

I peeled into my house’s parking space and ran the heavy CRTs into my computer room at home. They were safe… for now. Luckily, I actually needed a CRT, since I had tried to set up Linux Mint on a computer, but had failed when it tried to use monitor frequencies that my other monitor couldn’t handle. Anyhoo, I ended up using the found CRT to successfully fix up that computer.

Where Can I Donate my CRT Monitor?

If you have a CRT you don’t want, you gots some options on where to donate it:

• Ask a public school or library if they want it.
• Give it away on Freecycle, Craigslist, or OhSoHandy
• See if Goodwill or another thrift store wants it

Why Shouldn’t I Just Throw Out My CRT?

First, it’s wasteful. Come on now. Second, there’s a lot of toxic mess in CRTs that could leak out in a dump, such as:

• lead
• phosphorous
• cadmium
• barium
• mercury

Moral of the Story

Instead of just tossing your old, faithful CRT monitor into the trash, give it a second life somewhere. You’ll be helping someone while helping the environment, too. Now that’s what I’m talking about.