Use them in the garden for scaring birds.

String out over your veg plot to scare away birds.

Learn about how they recycle stuff in Sweden!

http://mdabase.blogspot.com/2007/01/monday-january-29th-2007-recycling.html

you can re-record films etc on to your home computer:

http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v21/vic21.htm

How about using the actual tape to weave bags, bracelets or maybe a door mat/ kneeling pad for gardening.

You can post unwanted VHS casettes boxes and all to:

The Recycling People
Unit 1 Wolf Business Park
Alton Road
Ross-on-Wye
Herefordshire
HR9 5NB

The hard plastic cases are reground and recycled as are the cases and any cardboard inserts, any metal parts are also recycled. The tape is currently non-recylable.
There is a charge for this service (£5.85 for up to 50 pieces).
For further details contact recycle@keymood.co.uk.
They also take CD,DVD and audio cassettes.

£5.85 for 50 pieces (plus the colossal cost of postage, and of course, the attendant environmental impact of the transportation) … or I *could* just put drip-feed them (say, 10 a week) into the household refuse collection and get the council to chuck them onto a landfill at zero (extra) cost to myself. hmmm… which option seems more attractive….

Once again it would seem as if money is the root of the problem in disposing of video tapes. Why shold people pay to get rid of recyclable items. If they are being recycled and made into reusable parts then the great “Recycling People” of Ross-on-Wye who are earning good money to run a buisness should pay those who bring in the raw materials just like the metals industry or take them in for nothing for a start and it would help encourage the clear up of video tapes. If people new that they could get money for their old video tapes we could end this problem and earn a little and the great “Recycling People” of Ross-on-wye would never be out of buisness. But as it stands it would appear that greed once again is destroying our planet. Does anybody with any clowt in the English and Scotish goverment come to this web site. Maybe the goverment could help The Recycling People of Ross-on-wye with starting up a new stratagy of taking videos free of charge and maybe later move on to actually paying for video tapes once they have developed a market for reusable plastics. Is there a market for reusable plastics?

As a year 2 Ba Product Designer I found that the cases of VHS tapes could be made into a DVD storage tower. Plenty of irony there. the tape could be used to make a fly stopper for above a door and the spools make nice yoyos

i would love to know how to make a dvd tower out of vhs cases

me too!

Cindy at http://www.myrecycledbags.com/ has crocheted bags out of old VHS tape. A description of the making process and patterns are available from her website - well worth a look if you’re craft-y!

-louisa

Thanks for adding my link to this thread. I also have patterns for crocheting with old cassette tapes. Check it out at http://www.myrecycledbags.com/ for full details and free patterns.

Is there any danger in letting grand kids play with them? I was wondering about mercury or magnet stuff. They have make spiderwed all over my house. Also used them as streamers on a stick, almost as good as firework ’sparklers’

Send unwanted laser discs and VHS tapes to GreenDisk. GreenDisk is a large company involved in commercial electronic media reuse and recycling located in Washington; they are also willing to absorb your personal laser discs and VHS tapes into their waste-reprocessing stream. Your tapes will be degaussed and resold to cities and police departments for surveillance tapes; your discs will be shredded and sold for plastics reuse.

Nice suggestion Tricia, but with a collection numbering near on a thousand tapes and being a non-driver I’m not going to work for the next coule of years simply to pay the paostage!

I was just investigating how we could recycle our old video collection. Here’s a website that has a list of recycling options. Maybe one will work for you… http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/cd/recycle/options/mvid.htm I don’t know where you live but you could check out the nearest county that may have a place to recycle and then the next time you are in the area you could drop them off. Good Luck!

hi anne,
i read your post on the recycle site in which you mentioned that you have a old video tape collection you want to recycle/get rid off?
do you still have them?>
if so is it possdible to arrange a p+p service which i will of course pay for because i collect old tapes?

i am for real, so if you are willing please get in contact asap.
thanks
regards
Trevor

i have over 300 videos do you want them? I live in nottingham!

hi do you still have these as we will collect free they will go for recycling

hi bernie
we have around 500 various old but unused tapes that we want to recycle - pls post or send full info of who you are & waht you do,
cheers
dickon

Do you still want old tapes - where are you ? I am going through our old collection - I have >100 ready for disposal, and another 3-400 which I am reviewing

Hi Trevor
what sort of videos do you want? I have proper recorded and “off the TV2 recorded.
I just want rid of them - are you interested in any of them? pls advise. thanks
Liz

Do you still need VHS tapes? I have a load to get rid of.

Let me know if so!

Sam

I have 2000 VHS tapes I want to sell.
Let me know if you are interested.

Trevor,

Are you still wanting old video tapes I have about 50, mainly films which I have bought other the years?

trevor wrote:

hi anne,i read your post on the recycle site in which you mentioned that you have a old video tape collection you want to recycle/get rid off?do you still have them?>if so is it possdible to arrange a p+p service which i will of course pay for because i collect old tapes?
i am for real, so if you are willing please get in contact asap.thanksregardsTrevor

well after reading thru all of that they are def going in the bin, obviously no uses for them

If you are in the London area, you can drop off VHS tapes at the address below for LaundryBiz to recycle

This is from their website - keep reading past the post-them-to-us option instructions…and they say you can drop them off at the same address.

www.thelaundry.biz
Get all your old CDs, DVDs, CDRs, VHS and cassette tapes together (the plastic cases and inlay cards are fine too) (but no floppy disks. Although did you know that South Africans apparently call them ’stiffies’ - How rude).
Put them in a box or a sturdy envelope.
If you can write the weight of the package on there too we will love you very much.
Take them to the post office and post them to:
The Laundry CD Recycling
London Recycling
4d North Crescent
Cody Road
London
E16 4TG

Here is a map, it’s marked sorting facility.

Or you can print off a label if you put the right sized label in your printer:

Avery L7162 (3.39 x 9.9 cm) - will open in word
Avery L7905 (9.3 x 21 cm) - will open in word
If you have masses of CDs etc you can drop them off to the same address, as long as its Monday-Friday during office hours.

Please note that the above address is only for CDs, DVDs, CDRs, VHS and cassette tapes recycling! For everything else contact us at:
The Laundry, BedZED Centre, 24 Helios Road, Wallington, Surrey, SM6 7BZ.

If in doubt call the lovely Rachel on 020 8404 6330

I’m really sorry - we don’t offer this service any more, our reprocessor pulled out and we can’t find anywhere else to take them.

Apologies,

Rachel

hi if you have any that you need collecting let me know

i need lots of VHS tapes for something im making at art school. email me if you still want rid of them.

yuilelaura@hotmail.com

Hi Laura

I have dozens of old video cassettes (and audio) in the loft. Do you still need them for your project? I live in the north London/Herts area.

Regards.

Sarah

I thought that VHS tapes were highly flammable. Surely recycling them into crocheted bags etc..etc., whilst highly imaginative, would prove to be a fire hazard?

Due to the high cost of stripping out the innards of a VHS tape for recycling the plastic parts nobody seems to want to touch them due to no profits gained from the plastic due to the expensive labour cost. I cannot believe that some companies ship them abroad for disposal.

Here is my suggestionfor VHS Tape Recycling which needs to be put in place NOW before everyone landfills their tapes…

Local councils to collect say upto 5 tapes at a time in our home recycle boxes and give them to the criminals on community service to strip apart! You never know the judges could be sentencing these people to 1000 VHS tape-hours instead of the easy jobs them sometimes get. This way they will have to work for their sentence and there would be no slacking. Obviously provide them with a screwdriver, a neon vest stating “naught boy” and safety goggles (to keep Health & Safety happy)

It may seem a joke but you would not want to do that job again in a hurry!

Joe.

what a good thourt , now that’s a bit of impressive lateral thinking

What a fantastic idea, although I do not think giving criminals screw drivers is a good idea. OK so now the criminals have broken down tons of old video tapes and all the different materials have been segregated what then, who is going to repress or melt down all the tons of plastic. Do you have an answer for this or have you read anything on this web sight from someone who can unlock the door to a recycling revolution. If so could you please contact me back as I must have the answers and then I can start ramming these ideas down the throats of these poor labour politicians. What has green peace come up with for this problem. Any reply would be gratful.
yours sincerely
Chris Andrews

Hmmmm…. I think I will get the tape out on my own and recycle the hard case. I hate throwing away stuffs (as simply garbage) too much.

Firstly I would like to know if anyone knows what different materials are used to make up a VHS video tape.
Once we have discovered what they are made of we can then look to see weather these materials can be melted or repressed ready to be made into new products. theoretically we are all sitting on a gold mine. surly someone from the industry of video manufacturers can lend a helping hand to get the ball rolling for us with there advice. I belive there are companies in america which are doing what we intend to do. but why should we have to ship this useless waste abroad.
Can someone please get back to me if any of my suggestion could have some light thrown on it as I would like to help with this problem.
yours sincerely
chris andrews.

Have a bunch of plastic boxes that you store the vhs tapes in. Does anyone have a crafting suggestion for them?

if you can not get rid contact me and i will collect large amounts free or you can post them to me we recycle them

We’ve covered that in another post: How can I reuse or recycle … plastic VHS video cases?

Hope you find some useful suggestions/ideas there :)

-louisa :)