Digital TV Facts: The Latest

Television as garbage: it’s hardly a new criticism. But most critics of that school, over the past several decades, have been talking (well, ranting) about TV content. The appliance itself has been a durable good—until now. Giles Slade, author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, traces the history of planned obsolescence, from Alfred Sloan’s Chevrolets to cell phones that might as well come with expiration dates. But obsolescence’s killer app, he says, is digital TV:

All the older TVs have cathode-ray tubes that contain maybe five to 10 pounds of lead. Television enjoys a 95 per cent market penetration in the United States, which would mean that, conservatively, there are about 300 million of them out there in living rooms and dens and basements. And they are about to be chucked. The sheer amount of toxic lead that is about to enter the waste stream is simply going to overwhelm it—there are not enough container ships to send these obsolete televisions off to Asia where they can be broken up safely. This is a massive biohazard that is about to enter America’s groundwater.

Of course, not everyone needs to, or wants to, ditch that old TV. But many will, and the nation shows scant evidence of confronting the waste problem.

• Link: Tyee Books