How to get rid of a TV in Las Vegas

The short answer

The minimum visit is $75, so a single TV is under it and comes up to $75. Pair it with the stand it sat on and it is $68 + $96 = $164 for a 55-inch set and its entertainment center.

If it works, give it away first

This is the one piece of advice that works better in Las Vegas than in most places. The valley has enormous residential turnover, a lot of furnished and short-term rentals, and a constant stream of people arriving for hospitality and construction work who need to furnish a place cheaply and immediately.

A working flat panel listed free for collection today will be claimed within hours here. A working one listed cheap will sell nearly as fast. Meet the collector in the driveway or at the community gate rather than inviting a stranger through the house, give a firm window, and expect one no-show before someone actually turns up.

What will not move: anything with a cracked panel, anything with lines or dead zones on the display, and any CRT. Do not spend a week listing those.

Old CRTs are the hard ones

The heavy glass tube televisions still turn up in valley garages, and they are the most awkward category in consumer electronics.

They contain leaded glass, which is exactly what makes them a controlled disposal item, and they are astonishingly heavy for their size. A 32-inch CRT can weigh more than a 75-inch flat panel. Nobody wants one, nobody will buy one, and many recycling routes charge more for them or decline them because the processing is harder.

Two practical points. First, do not try to carry one down a flight of stairs alone. It is a two-person item with no good handholds. Second, do not break the tube, deliberately or by dropping it. At $62 for anything under 42 inches, a CRT is one of the better-value things on our list precisely because it is such a nuisance by any other route.

Why you cannot just curb it

Most municipal bulk programs exclude electronics from ordinary large-item collection, because of the leaded glass in CRTs, the mercury in older backlighting and the heavy metals on the circuit boards. Check your address on your city's or the county's page rather than assuming, since Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and unincorporated Clark County each publish their own guidance.

If you curb one and it is refused, you now have a television on your curb that you cannot legally leave, and in a master-planned community that is a compliance notice by the end of the week. Summerlin, Green Valley, Anthem, Seven Hills and the Henderson master plans all run active compliance passes, and an abandoned TV is not subtle.

Free and low-cost routes worth a call

• Retailer take-back. Several national electronics chains with locations across the valley accept consumer electronics for recycling at the store. Size limits on televisions are common and terms change, so check the current policy for the specific store before loading a 70-inch panel into the car.
• Manufacturer take-back. Some brands run their own drop-off or mail-back recycling. Usually more useful for smaller devices than for a large TV.
• County or city e-waste events. Household electronics collection events run periodically in the metro. Check the current schedule rather than a date you remember, because they move.

Do not store it in the garage

The standard valley move is to put the old TV in the garage when the new one arrives, intending to deal with it later. With no basements anywhere in this metro, the garage is the only option, and it is the wrong one for electronics.

An uninsulated garage here runs past 120 degrees through July and August. Capacitors degrade, the adhesive layers in an LCD panel can separate, and any device with a lithium battery in it can come out with a visibly swollen cell. A television that worked perfectly when it went on the shelf frequently does not when it comes off.

So if you intend to sell or give away a TV, do it now, not in October. The garage does not preserve it here. It ages it.

Wipe it before it leaves

A smart TV holds your wifi password and your streaming account logins, and a factory reset takes about five minutes from the settings menu. Do it before the set leaves the house, along with signing out on any streaming stick, console or soundbar going out with it.

We dispose of the hardware. The accounts are yours.

Worked example: a Summerlin living room upgrade

A new panel goes on the wall, so out goes the old 65-inch set, the entertainment center it stood on, and an ancient CRT that has been in the garage since the family moved in.

$73 + $96 + $62 = $231.

One visit, carried out of the front room and the garage, nothing staged on the driveway where a compliance pass would find it.

How to decide

Working set: list it free or cheap today and it will be gone this week, because this market always has someone furnishing a new rental. Small dead set and you have an errand that way anyway: check a retailer take-back or a county e-waste event. A CRT, a cracked panel, anything above 65 inches, or anything that needs carrying out of the back of a garage: book it. $62, $68 or $73 by size, with the carry included and no stair charge.

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