I only made it about 3 paragraphs into this NYTimes article about the switch to digital television when I thought of a quick article to write for this blog.
Okay, so I hope you know the gist of this whole story. The US government decided to end analogue television signals on June 12, 2009 to free up bandwidth for use in other, more rapidly growing, wireless technologies like cellphones and internet. The bandwidth was sold to companies that wanted to use it and a few billion dollars were raised.
In theory this doesn’t affect me. I dont own a television and given the way the internet is headed, I’m not sure I’ll ever purchase one that’s not a computer screen for most of the time. The issue is that when the government made this decision they made a few billion but didn’t think of all the consequences.
Although you can “simply” get a government subsidized converter box and still use your old analogue TV, millions have used this change as a reason to buy a new television and upgrade their TV service. That’s great. But what about all those old, still working televisions? Is the government subsidizing the effort to recycle them? No? Well why not?
Apparently, the US government cares more about providing Americans with undisturbed television than about the environment.
Bottom Line: Please recycle your television or hold onto it until there’s an e-waste drive in your area. Please.