Ready To Dispose Your DVD Player?

 
DVD players are considered old technology already in our fast paced world today. History has shown us what happens to old technology, and for DVD players, the same outcome is predictable. What can we do as responsible citizens of the world to help out in the reduction of our e-waste footprint?

Let me tell you a story of a time not so long ago. A few years ago… there were only cassette tapes to record music. It was very successful, and people worldwide used this technology to play music or audio files in their cassette players. Then came the Compact Discs, which was considered to be the breakthrough in memory storage technology during the 90s. It replaced the cassette tape and the floppy disc in one fell swoop. Do you know what ever happened to those cassette tapes and all the other cassette tape related accessories and players that almost all houses had? They all ended up in cassette tape hell … (That means incinerators or landfills by the way) They are now just categorized as an electronic waste that needs to be reduced.

DVD players are still widely used today though, but recently, the new guys on the block, the Blu-ray’s and the HDDVDs, have been trying their best to replace the old technology once again, which may mean that we may have to say goodbye to our old friend, the DVD, here. Even if you do not want to change, you will eventually be forced to change eventually due to the lack of DVDs that will show up in the market. For example, remember the very successful gaming console a few years ago? That was the PlayStation 1, and almost every kid in the world with a television had one. The PS1 used the old school CDs as their method of storing files for the console to play games. Today, no more CD games are being made for that console, so we are forced to either throw it away, donate it, or keep it for “old times sake”. The CD has been killed off because no one makes no content for it anymore, and everyone is made to change to the new technology at the time.

Our society needs to do something about our excessive consumerist tendencies as well, since the companies that are producing these electronics are directly responsible for the generation of these “wastes”. Some companies though are accepting a trade-in discount, where you give your old product in exchange for a discount for the new model. Nike does this for the shoe industry and Nokia for the cellphone industry. Now who would do this for our beloved DVD players when they eventually grow past their age?