Advice · 4 min read · Updated 6 November 2026
What happens to your old TV when it is recycled in the UK?
Step 1: Collection and sorting
TVs reach recycling plants from household waste recycling centres, retailer take-back, council collections and registered collectors. At recycling centres, screens usually go into their own container, separate from small electricals and large appliances, because display equipment needs its own treatment process.
| Stream | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Display equipment | TVs, monitors, laptops and screens |
| Large household appliances | Washing machines, cookers, dishwashers |
| Cooling appliances | Fridges, freezers, air conditioning units |
| Small mixed WEEE | Toasters, DVD players, set-top boxes, cables |
| Lamps | Fluorescent tubes and energy-saving bulbs |
Keeping screens upright and unbroken during collection makes treatment safer and recovers more material.
Step 2: Arrival at an approved facility
TVs go to facilities permitted to treat WEEE, often called approved authorised treatment facilities. These sites record what arrives and issue evidence of how much has been treated, which feeds into the system that makes electrical producers pay for recycling. This paperwork trail is one reason a registered collector matters. It shows your TV went somewhere legitimate rather than being dumped or illegally exported.
Businesses that hand over TVs for recycling should receive a waste transfer note, or a consignment note for hazardous items such as CRTs. Householders do not usually get paperwork, which is why choosing a known route, such as a council site or a registered carrier, matters.
Step 3: Removing hazardous parts
Before anything is shredded, hazardous components are taken out. What this involves depends on the type of TV.
| TV type | Main hazard | How it is handled |
|---|---|---|
| CRT tube TV | Lead in the funnel glass, phosphor coatings | Tube separated, glass split and treated at specialist plants |
| Older LCD with CCFL backlight | Small amounts of mercury in fluorescent tubes | Lamps removed by hand or in sealed automated systems |
| LED-backlit LCD and OLED | No mercury backlight, but circuit boards and plastics | Boards and plastics separated for recovery |
| Plasma | Glass, phosphors, circuit boards | Dismantled and separated |
Batteries in remotes or built-in components are removed and sent for battery recycling. Capacitors and certain circuit board parts are separated too.
Step 4: Dismantling and shredding
Many plants dismantle TVs partly by hand, removing the back cover, stand, speakers, circuit boards and the screen panel. The remaining parts are fed into shredders and separation lines that use magnets, eddy currents, air and sorting sensors to split the material into streams.
- Steel from frames, chassis and brackets
- Aluminium from heat sinks and frames
- Copper from cables, coils and speakers
- Glass from LCD panels and CRT tubes
- Plastics from casings and back covers
- Circuit boards containing small amounts of gold, silver and palladium
Step 5: Turning materials into new products
Separated metals go to smelters and are made into new metal. Circuit boards go to specialist refiners that recover precious metals. Clean glass may be used in new glass products or construction materials. CRT funnel glass containing lead needs specialist treatment because there is little demand for it in new products.
Some older TV plastics contain brominated flame retardants, some of which are classed as persistent organic pollutants. Rules in the UK require waste containing these substances above set levels to be destroyed, usually by high-temperature incineration, rather than recycled. Plastics without them can be reprocessed into new plastic products.
LCD panels also contain small amounts of indium in a thin coating on the glass, used to make the screen conductive. Recovering it is technically difficult and is not yet widespread, so research into better ways to recover it from old screens continues.
What you can do to help
- Keep the TV upright and avoid cracking the screen
- Remove batteries from the remote and recycle them separately
- Sign out of apps and do a factory reset on smart TVs
- Use a recycling centre, retailer take-back or registered collector
- Ask any collector where the TV will be taken
Broken screens are harder and less safe to handle. If a TV is already damaged, tell whoever collects it so it can be handled with care.
What about data on smart TVs?
Treatment plants shred circuit boards, which destroys stored data, but your TV may sit in containers and storage for some time before treatment. Signing out of streaming and social apps and doing a factory reset before the TV leaves your home is the simplest way to protect your accounts. It takes a few minutes and is far easier than changing passwords afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
Do old TVs end up in landfill?
TVs recycled through recycling centres, retailer take-back and registered collectors should go to approved WEEE treatment facilities, not landfill. Most of their weight is recovered as glass, metals and plastics, with some residues and certain plastics incinerated. TVs put in household bins or fly-tipped can end up in landfill or the environment, which is why separate recycling is required.
How much of a TV can be recycled?
A large share of a TV's weight can be recovered, mainly as glass, steel, aluminium, copper and plastics, plus small amounts of precious metals from circuit boards. The exact proportion depends on the TV type and the facility. Some materials, such as leaded CRT glass and plastics containing certain flame retardants, need special treatment or destruction instead.
Are old TVs sent abroad for recycling?
Legitimate WEEE recycling of household TVs largely happens at UK treatment facilities, and some separated materials are sold on to processors in other countries. Exporting broken electricals as waste to many countries is illegal. Using a registered waste carrier and asking where your TV will go reduces the risk that it is illegally exported.
recycling process WEEE treatment materials
