Can You Recycle Satellite Dishes
The short answer is YES. Satellite dishes are recyclable.
How To Recycle Satellite Dish Components
Every municipality has different recycling regulations, which you should research before proceeding. There are also private enterprise recyclers or scrap metal businesses that may accept your Satellite dish.
For instance, if you live in the Seattle area, King County has compiled a list of electronics recyclers.
Satellite dishes primarily consist of 3 materials/items: Plastic, Metal, and a circuit board.
We describe more about those components and recycling them below.
Metal & Plastic
The bulk of the dish is made up of metal with its plastic components comprising a relatively small percentage of the dish.
Most recyclers will accept Satellite dishes as scrap metal without requiring the prior removal of the plastic components. The plastic will be removed as part of the recycling/scrap metal process.
Electronics
The circuit board, which contains lead, mercury, cadmium, and other harmful substances that are dangerous to the environment, should be extracted from the dish and recycled separately.
However, not all localities have an easy-to-access electronic waste disposal site. In fact, even areas that do have a good electronic waste recycling system will typically accept Satellite dishes as scrap metal without the need to remove the electronic circuit board first. However, we recommend removing the circuit board before recycling it because the board contains toxic ingredients.
Creative Ways to Reuse Satellite Dishes
Of course, you can opt to repurpose your satellite dish instead of recycling it. There are a lot of creative projects that a Satellite dish can inspire. We have listed just a few below.
- As a DIY swing: drill some holes in the dish, add cables, and hang it up in your yard. I stumbled upon a wonderful example of a DYI Satellite dish swing using 2 DIrect TV dishes. Check it out here. The webpage includes great step-by-step instructions.
- As a shallow pond for your garden or yard, birds will enjoy it.
- As a Captain America shield next Halloween.
- As a gazebo roof (i.e., with an extra large dish) in your garden with proper structure and support.
- Or, perhaps a friend wants it for a mosaic project or some such craft project.
Benefits of Recycling Satellite Dishes
By recycling or repurposing Satellite dishes, we benefit our environment long-term. Not only does it keep us from creating more trash, but it can also provide raw materials for other uses. It’s also an easy way to lessen the waste in landfills.
Wire Free Sky Recycles
At Wire Free Sky, we take the extra and essential step of extracting the electronic chip from the satellite dish before sending it into the standard recycling process. We then recycle the chip as electronic waste to keep those toxic components from contaminating the recycling process. It’s a win-win for you and the environment.
If you need help removing and recycling your old Satellite dish, contact us today – we would be happy to assist!
How To Remove Satellite Dishes
Before you can recycle or repurpose a dish, you must remove it from your home. Below are the 3 main steps to do it.
Step 1: Remove the dish from your roof or side of home.
Step 2: Fill in screw holes (if any) after the dish is removed
Step 3: Recycle the dish OR put it in the garbage
For more how-to details, so our post: Who is responsible and how to remove Satellite Dishes
If you don’t want to remove or recycle your unneeded Satellite dish yourself, Wire Free Sky is happy to help.
Please visit our Service and Prices page to learn more.