What to Do With Your Old TV: E-Waste Recycling in Australia

Bought a new TV and stuck with the old one in the hallway? Do not put it in the kerbside bin. In Australia you can recycle a TV for free through a national scheme, and in Victoria putting it in the rubbish is actually against the rules. Here is how to get rid of an old TV the right way, what it costs (usually nothing), and the options if the set still works.

The short version: if the TV is dead, take it to a free e-waste drop-off point under the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme or your local council. If it still works, reuse, donate or sell it instead so it stays out of the waste stream entirely.

First question: does it still work?

Before you recycle anything, check whether the TV actually needs to be scrapped. A working set has value and a use.

• Sell it. Even an older Full HD or early 4K TV moves quickly second-hand if the price is right. If you go this route, our second-hand TV checklist covers what buyers look for and how to describe condition honestly.
• Donate it. Charities, community groups, op shops, schools and men's sheds will sometimes take a working TV. Ring ahead first, because many will not accept old CRT (tube) sets or anything without a remote, and some cannot take electricals at all.
• Hand it down. A spare room, a garage, a kids' gaming setup or a mate starting out are all homes for a TV you have outgrown.
• Trade it in. Some retailers run trade-in or take-back offers when you buy a new set, occasionally with a small credit or a bonus. These come and go, so check what is on at the time rather than assuming it exists. Trade-in value on TVs is usually modest, so weigh it against just selling privately.

If you are weighing up whether an old set is worth keeping or passing on, it helps to know where used and ex-display or refurbished TVs sit on price. That gives you a rough sense of what your old one is worth to someone else.

Only when the TV is genuinely dead, broken or obsolete does it become e-waste.

The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS)

The main way to recycle a TV for free in Australia is the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, usually shortened to NTCRS. It has been running since 2011, and it is the reason you can drop a TV off without paying a cent.

Here is how it works:

• It is free for households and small businesses. You take your old TV to a designated drop-off point and hand it over at no charge.
• Industry pays for it. The scheme is funded by the manufacturers and importers of TVs and computers, not by you and not by ratepayers. This is called product stewardship: the companies that put the products on the market help pay to recycle them at the end of their life.
• It covers more than TVs. Alongside televisions, the scheme covers computers and computer parts and peripherals, so think laptops, monitors, printers, keyboards, mice, hard drives and cables. If you are clearing out an old TV, it is a good chance to offload dead computer gear at the same time.
• It is backed by law. The scheme sits under the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 and its associated product stewardship rules, and it is delivered through approved arrangements and drop-off services (for example, services such as TechCollect that many councils and retailers plug into).

The scheme is designed to give the large majority of Australians reasonable access to a collection point, with drop-off available through permanent sites, periodic take-back events and, in some cases, a mail-back option. To find your nearest one, search the scheme's drop-off finder or Recycling Near You, or ask your local council where the closest e-waste point is.

Council e-waste drop-off and kerbside rules

Your local council is the other main option, and often the most convenient.

Many councils accept e-waste, including TVs, at their transfer stations or resource recovery centres, and some run periodic e-waste collection events or drop-off days. A lot of these are free, though some charge a small fee for certain items, so it is worth checking before you load the car.

The important part: kerbside rules vary from council to council. Some offer a booked hard-rubbish collection that may or may not take e-waste. Some do not take electricals at the kerb at all. A TV that is fine to leave out in one area might be knocked back in the next suburb over. There is no single national kerbside rule, so check your own council's website or give them a call before you put anything out. Do not assume the bin or the hard-rubbish pile is fair game.

As a rule of thumb, an old TV should never go in your regular kerbside rubbish or recycling bin. It is too big, it contains hazardous parts, and in some places it is banned outright.

Victoria bans e-waste from landfill

If you live in Victoria, this one is not optional. Since 1 July 2019, e-waste has been banned from landfill across the state. That means you cannot put a TV, or any item with a plug, battery or cord, in your household rubbish or recycling bins.

In Victoria, e-waste has to go to a designated e-waste collection point instead. The state has a large network of these, including many council drop-off sites, and disposal is typically free. If you are a Victorian trying to get rid of a TV, the kerbside bin is off the table by law, so head to a collection point.

Other states and territories are moving in a similar direction and have their own e-waste programs and drop-off networks, but the rules and the exact restrictions differ from place to place. Victoria is the clearest case of an outright landfill ban. Wherever you are, the safe move is the same: take the TV to an e-waste drop-off point rather than binning it.

What happens to a recycled TV

Handing a TV over for recycling is not just tidy disposal. A large share of the set gets recovered and turned back into useful material.

Once it reaches a recycler, an old TV is generally inspected, then dismantled and separated into its component materials:

• Metals such as steel, copper and aluminium are recovered and smelted for reuse.
• Plastics from the casing are shredded and melted down for new products.
• Circuit boards are processed to recover small amounts of precious metals like gold, silver and copper.
• Glass, particularly the leaded glass in older tube (CRT) TVs, is separated and handled so the lead can be dealt with safely.

That last point matters. Older CRT TVs can contain several kilograms of lead, and some sets contain other hazardous substances such as mercury in backlights. Proper recycling captures and manages these safely instead of letting them end up in landfill, which is a big part of why binning a TV is discouraged and, in Victoria, banned.

The NTCRS also sets a high bar for how much gets recovered: approved recyclers under the scheme work to a material recovery target of 90 per cent by weight, so the great majority of what you drop off is sent on for reprocessing rather than dumped.

The quick answer

• Working TV: sell, donate, hand down or trade in. Keep it in use.
• Dead TV, anywhere in Australia: take it to a free NTCRS drop-off point or your local council's e-waste facility. Do not use the kerbside bin.
• Dead TV in Victoria: e-waste is banned from landfill, so a designated e-waste collection point is the only legal option.
• Not sure of the local rules: check your council. Kerbside and drop-off arrangements vary by area.

Getting rid of an old TV responsibly costs you nothing but a short drive, keeps hazardous material out of the ground, and puts the metals, plastics and glass back into use. Line it up before the new set arrives and the old one never has to sit in the hallway for six months.