Media Recycling – Where To Get Rid of Your Old CDs, DVDs, Games, Videos, Discs and More

You’ve had enough.

Enough of the all shelves in your home crammed with CDs you never play since you discovered Spotify.

Enough of the boxes of video games that haven’t been played in a decade.

Perhaps you’ve found a stash of old videocassettes or a box of floppy discs in the attic, garage or basement.

Maybe you realised that that unused piece of audio equipment or games console that you want to declutter has a related collection of media to go with it.

Or you are just tired of looking at shelves of DVDs and Blu-rays that you watched once but won't watch again.

So if you want to get rid of your old DVDs, games or CDs, or you have a stash of more unusual media such as minidiscs, laser discs, Betamax videos, reel-to-reel tapes, UMD discs or 8-track cassettes, here is what to do with all of them.

Are They Worth Anything?

It is very possible that your first thought will be, are they worth anything. You spent all that money on them, can you recoup any of it.

Well the answer is maybe, but probably not.

Visit any charity shop in the UK and you will find shelves of CDs and DVDs priced at four for a pound. Maybe a sad-looking basket of cassettes. And the inevitable copy of Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo DS.

Most of your media isn’t worth anything, because everyone else is decluttering them too. Nobody wants them. The harsh truth is that even if you donate them, they will probably end up going to landfill.

How Do I Know If My Media is Worth Anything?

Your first port of call could be one of the companies that specialise in buying books and media such as World of Books (formerly called Ziffit), We Buy Books, Zapper or Music Magpie.

Using your phone you can scan the barcodes and they will let you know immediately if they will buy it off you, and how much they can offer.

Then you will need to box up the saleable items and send them off free of charge. The proceeds will be sent to your bank account a few days after they are received and checked.

The advantage is that you might be able to get rid of quite a quantity of items quickly. But it is quite time consuming, and you do have to send the parcel off.

Next you can check eBay to see if your items have any value.

On the eBay app you can scan barcodes or use your phone’s camera to search eBay’s listings. Remember to check sold listings; people can ask any price they like on eBay (or may have simply mistyped it) but that doesn’t mean that anyone will pay it.

So you’ve discovered that some of your CD/DVD/Blu-ray/Games collection is worth a few bob. What can you do? The easiest thing is to go ahead and list it on eBay or some of the newer platforms such as Vinted or Depop. You could also try putting then on Facebook Marketplace or Shpock.

If not, you can donate your items to a charity shop or jumble sale if they are in good condition. If it’s scratched, it jumps, is dirty or the case is empty, please just bin it yourself. Be kind, don’t donate them, save the poor volunteers at the charity shop some work and put them in your own bin.

Many people do not realise that charity shops in the UK have to pay for waste disposal at business rates, by weight. So you are actually costing the charities money if you give them unsaleable goods.

Recycling More Unusual Media

So what about the more unusual media? Do you have media at home that goes beyond the regular CDs, DVDs, games and Blu-rays?

Here’s what you can do with everything from CD-ROMs to reel-to-reel tapes, video cassettes and laser discs, UMD, minidiscs and vinyl

Spoiler: Research everything!

Videocassettes

Image Credit: Jean Scheijen

You’re not going to like this, but pretty much all of your videocassettes can go straight into the bin. There are a very small number of videocassettes whose content may make them desirable to a collector, but basically they are junk.

They cannot be economically recycled.

Cassettes

Image Credit: Jon Tyson

As far as cassettes are concerned, the comments that apply to videotapes also apply to music cassettes. They are going to landfill, and donating them to a charity shop is just delaying the inevitable. Sorry.

8-track cartridge players, sold mainly from the 1960s to the 1980s, were particularly popular in cars – more in the US than the UK. Very rare now, the cassettes still have appeal to devotees of redundant media and a cassette of a classic band of the era might just be what a fan is looking for to complete their collection.

Reel-to Reel Tapes

Now, this is one type of media where the wheelie bin will not be your first port of call.

Reel-to-reel tapes tapes were made to be robust and designed to be used over and over again. This means that even used ones sell keenly on eBay. Pre-recorded tapes can also be taped over and so are as popular as unused or used blank tape.

The empty reels required to receive the tape are valuable too, so don’t overlook them if you are looking to sell a collection.

Vinyl Records

Image Credit: Eric Krull

Selling old vinyl is a topic all of it’s own, as it’s all about the condition as well as the rareness. With the increasing popularity of record shops and fairs, it would be worth contacting a record dealer to see if your collection is worth anything.

Very few records have any value and will sit unsold in the charity shop for months (classical discs are particularly hard to shift), but there are rarities that still get collectors and fans excited. And newer vinyl discs can change hands for surprisingly eye-watering figures

Video Games

The desirability of outdated video games, whether on disc for a PC or a proprietary format for a games console will require the same sort of research as for your CDs and DVDs. Sealed version of a game from a much loved franchise? Probably worth looking up, but with so many popular games available on Steam or similar, most are also landfill fodder.

Yeah, Dr Kawashima can go in the bin too.

MiniDiscs

Sony’s Minidisc was introduced not long after the launch of CDs, intended as a smaller and more compact competitor to the Compact Disc. The Minidisc still has a small but devoted following of collectors due to their higher sound quality. If you have discs in good condition (and let’s face it, audiophiles tend to look after their media), these discs can often sell for anything from £50 to £200.

If you have something by a big name band or artist it will probably sell easily. Even an individual classical disc can go for £20 to £50.

UMD

Another Sony innovation, the Universal Media Disc or UMD was designed for users of the PlayStation Portable to be able to watch films, TV shows or listen to music on their handheld consoles. They were soon superseded by the rapid improvements of mobile phones which allowed you to store and watch films without having to carry a disc around with you.

Now discontinued, most discs have little value, but like any other media there will be a few that are sought by collectors and can sell for £20+.

Laserdiscs

Like minidiscs, these have their devoted collectors and while some discs have little value, rare ones can sell for hundreds of pounds.

Developed by Philips, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA as a step-change quality improvement over the videocassette, they were soon overtaken by the much more convenient and cheaper DVD.

Floppy Discs

Image Credit: sundesigns

Fans of refurbishing old desktop computors and playing the computor games of their youth may appreciate these, as like reel-to-reel tapes they are designed to be used many times.

Like so much of the older media, they cannot in themselves be recycled, but there are many creative people who have turned them into bags or use them as funky retro coasters.

CD-Roms

If you have an Encyclopedia Britannica from the noughties, you probably won’t get many takers, but an unregistered copy of business software that is now only available as a subscription could be of interest, especially if you have the instruction book.

It’s worth checking if you have a disc of something rather obscure (county genealogy records form that could be a one off, but finding that buy could be a long wait.

Ten Tips For Selling Old Media

Research, research research. It beats wasting time photographing and selling items that will never sell.
Only sell discs that are in full working order that are visually in good condition. If you can’t test them, state that they are untested.
If you still have the player for more unusual media such as mini discs, laser discs, Betamax players or anything unusual, try bundling the media with the player and get rid of them all at the same time.
The more obscure the media format, the more likely it is to be desirable. Got something we haven’t covered here? – It may be even more coveted by a collector.
People collect what they are passionate about. A band or movie that inspires decades of devotion is more likely to be desirable to a buyer.
Special editions rarely make an item more valuable.
You can save lots of time and effort by bundling items into a job lot rather than trying to sell individual items.
Check the weight of items before setting the postage charge.
If in doubt, overpackage.
Offer the option of a local pickup, especially with job lots. You could make a new friend with a fellow media enthusiast!