The Uneasy Afterlife of Our Dazzling Trash

By Sandra E. Garcia | 11/7/20 | The New York Times

Every day, for the past 14 years, Bruce Bennett has received packages filled with CDs. Sometimes a few at a time and sometimes in packs of hundreds, shiny old discs arrive at his CD Recycling Center of America in Salem, N.H., a 300-foot blue trailer tucked behind a commercial strip, to ascend to the CD afterlife.

The CD recycling process requires Mr. Bennett, 55, to store a truckload, or approximately 44,000 pounds, of CDs in a warehouse before the discs can be granulated into raw polycarbonate plastic, resulting in a white and clear powdery material that glints and resembles large snowflake crystals stuck together.

The material, which takes one million years to decompose in a landfill, can eventually be used to mold durable items for cars, home building materials and eyeglasses.

But that’s assuming anybody buys the raw material. Read more >>