How to get rid of a TV in Portland

The short answer

Visit minimum is $75, so a single TV on its own is a $75 visit. Two items clear it — a 65-inch set plus its stand is $73 + $96 = $169.

Oregon also runs a statewide electronics recycling program with free drop-off, and that is the right route for some sets. Read on for which.

Which route fits your TV

Drive it to a free drop-off if: it is a flat panel under about 50 inches, you can lift it into a car with one other person, it is already off the wall, and you can go during opening hours. Check the current accepted-item list and the per-household limits first — these programs cap how many items you can bring in a visit, and turning up with four screens and being told two is an afternoon gone.

Book a collection if: it is a CRT, it is a rear-projection set, it is 65 inches or more, it is in a basement or a converted attic, it is still bolted to a wall, or it is one of several things going at once. That is most of the calls we get.

The honest framing: the recycling itself is free or close to it. What you are paying for on a collection is the carry and the fact that it happens on a scheduled window rather than on your Saturday.

The CRT in the basement

Every pre-war house on the east side seems to have one — a tube television or a rear-projection monster from the early 2000s, sitting in an unfinished basement in Woodstock or Montavilla, or out in the detached garage under a tarp.

Two things make this the hardest small item in the house. CRTs are extraordinarily heavy for their size, because most of the weight is leaded glass in the tube. And there is nowhere good to hold one — no handles, a smooth plastic case, and a center of gravity toward the front.

Put that on a 1915 basement stair with a steep rise, a short tread and a quarter-turn at the bottom, with one person walking backwards, and you have the classic way to get hurt in a Portland house. It is a $62 item on our list, it comes up those stairs at the same price as one in the front room, and it is the item we would push back hardest on doing yourself.

Do not drop one either. A broken CRT is leaded glass in a confined space.

The wall-mounted flat screen

The other Portland pattern. A flat panel bracketed to the wall of a converted attic bedroom, a basement family room, or an ADU over the garage, with the cabling run inside the wall by whoever did the conversion.

Coming off the bracket is easy. What surprises people is what is behind it. In older east-side houses the bracket often went into plaster and lath rather than drywall, and it does not come away cleanly — you get a dinner-plate patch job rather than four screw holes.

If you are selling the house or handing back a rental, take it down yourself a few days early so you can deal with the plaster on your own timetable, then have the set collected. If you do not care about the wall, leave it up and tell us when you book.

Selling or giving it away first

Portland will happily take a working flat screen off your hands. Buy Nothing groups move them quickly, and so does a straightforward local listing.

What will not move: anything with a cracked panel, anything CRT, anything rear-projection, and — a specific local point — anything that has been stored in a detached garage or a carport through a winter. Electronics that have sat in an unheated, single-wall Portland garage have been through months of condensation cycles. Even if it powers on, nobody wants it and you should not be encouraging them to take it.

Give it a week. Then book the collection.

Worked totals

Addition shown:

• 65-inch TV + entertainment center: $73 + $96 = $169
• Old CRT + new flat panel being replaced: $62 + $68 = $130
• Living room refresh — sofa + 42-to-65-inch TV + TV stand: $126 + $68 + $96 = $290
• Home office clearout — monitor + monitor + box of electronics: $58 + $58 + $77 = $193
• Three TVs from a rental turnover: $62 + $68 + $73 = $203

If a whole room is going, compare against a quarter truck load at $241 and take the lower number.

What happens to it afterwards

Televisions are not landfill material and reputable haulers in this metro do not treat them as such. A flat panel is separated into its aluminum frame, circuit boards, plastics and backlight components. A CRT is handled as leaded glass, which needs its own stream — that is the reason tube sets are the awkward category everywhere, not just here.

What we will not do is claim a diversion rate we cannot stand behind. What we will say is that TVs go to an electronics stream rather than onto a general load, and that is true whichever legitimate route you pick.

Before pickup

• Unplug it and coil the cables. Loose cables in a hallway are a trip hazard for someone carrying a screen.
• Say if it is still mounted, and say what the wall is made of if you know.
• Say if it is a CRT or rear-projection. That changes how many people come.
• Keep it dry. Do not put it on the covered porch the night before. Nine months of the year that is a wet TV by morning.
• Loose batteries out. Remotes are fine; loose lithium-ion cells go to a battery drop-off, not in the truck.

Frequently asked questions