Flat screens signal TV recycling

Electrical stores across Scotland have reported a surge of business over the holiday period with customers buying televisions with larger screens.

It is predicted that in seven years the average size of a television will be 60in (1m 52cm), compared with 25in (64cm) at the start of the decade.

Amid a boom in demand for new TVs, BBC Scotland's social affairs correspondent Reevel Alderson reports on how to dispose of your old set.

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The new advert from the Keep Scotland Beautiful campaign says don't dump your old television.

But with increasing numbers of us wanting to make room for that new flat screen what do you do?

Homes across the country are turning to digital television

Donna Niven, programme manager behind the Dumb Dumpers campaign, said: "If you've got an old TV, and you're buying a new one, the place where you're buying it may very well do an exchange where you can take the old one back.

"If that's not the case, phone up your local council, find out where your local recycling centre is and take it there."

The original digital TV star, Max Headroom has been brought back from the 1980s.

He is advertising Channel Four's digital channels as part of the TV revolution consigning analogue televisions to the scrapheap.

At the Comet store at Abbotsinch near Paisley, manager Dave Bell said sales of new TVs have been very good in the run up to Christmas and beyond, as customers rush to take advantage of the new technology.

"They seem to be trading up as flat panel TVs are more convenient, you can have them in any part of the room," he said.

They're stripped apart and the plastic, the metal, the glass, everything is set aside for recycling Bill Patterson Restructa

"People with flat panels seem to go for bigger sizes.

"We'd arrange to deliver the new television and our delivery service would take away your old television and we would arrange to have it recycled through the local council."

At Restructa, in Irvine, Ayrshire, old TVs are stripped down to their individual components and recycled.

Business is booming and the company has started a second shift.

Bill Patterson, production manager, said: "They're stripped apart and the plastic, the metal, the glass, everything is set aside for recycling.

"We reckon 97% of a television is fully recycled.

"Recycling is definitely the answer."

It is a business which will continue to grow in the next few years as the digital switchover - heralded for more than 20 years - gathers pace.