VHS tapes (and even rival format Betamax tapes) are getting fewer and farther between as the years fall by since DVDs became the physical medium of choice for people. DVDs became the dominant format for both film purchases and rentals by 2005. There are still a huge number of VHS cassettes out there though, with many owners now having nothing to play them on. So, can you make money from your old VHS tapes?
There are too few services offering services to recycle video tapes in VHS or Betamax format to pay you for them. However, selling them on marketplaces can be lucrative, with some titles in demand from collectors and fans of cult shows.
If you’re simply looking for something to do with your dusty VHS cassettes, we’ve got a page on what to do with old video tapes here.
What Are VHS Tapes Made From?
The shell of cassettes were usually made from black plastic, including a flip back lid that exposed the tapes the content was recorded onto. In fact, most of the touchable parts other than the magnetic tape itself were plastic, with the exception of the adhesive paper labels stuck to them to identify what’s on the tape.
The same applies to recordable blank tapes, the only difference being a small tab being present on a blank tape that lets the recorder know it’s fine to record onto – you could break the plastic tab off to effectively make the cassette read only and prevent the contents from being recorded over.
Inside, however, the cassette contains several materials, making them tough to recycle.
For example, the recordable tape is mainly a plastic film, but also incorporates iron as part of its metallic and magnetic property. For recycling purposes, the tape is particularly complicated to recycle when compared to typically recycled residential waste items like paper, cardboard and glass bottles and jars.
What’s more, companies investing in machinery and processes usually have their eye on recycling materials that are plentiful and growing in use, as these are most likely to be commercially viable and grow over time. VHS tapes are going the opposite way, even though audio cassettes are broadly the same in their construction – just smaller but also well on their way out.
While a lot of companies have worked on initiatives to break down products so as much of them as possible can be recycled, there is very limited enthusiasm for cassettes. At best, those thrown into the bin will be broken down and have their cases recycled, very few (if any) will be able to entirely avoid landfill.
Where To Sell VHS tapes
Sites like eBay and Preloved list old VHS tapes, and often other formats too, such as Betamax. Finding a new owner for anything you sell second hand is often better than recycling from an environmental standpoint, simply because recycling processes can often use chemicals, and almost certainly use energy. Of course, there’s also an environmental impact to getting a video tape delivered to a new owner, but the chances are it’s lower than throwing the tape away or recycling it, especially if the alternative was creating a new tape and there being more plastic and other non recyclables in the world.
If you’re just wanting to get rid of the tapes rather than make money from them, then listing them on local message boards or Facebook groups is a good option. Local people are able to pick them up while passing, resulting in less emissions than mailing them across the country.
How Do You Wipe VHS Tapes?
If you’re ridding of tapes that you bought blank and recorded onto, you might want to wipe them before throwing them out, selling them or giving them away. We’re not going to judge you for what’s on them, everyone’s recorded things off the TV over the years, and some people used to make a good living from bootleg copies on VHS cassettes for years. If you’ve a need to wipe them, you may no longer have a machine to do that with.
The reality is the chance of anyone having a machine to look at the contents of a video tape is slim even if they do manage to get their hands on them, but for piece of mind there are ways to quickly wipe the cassette of its contents. The key is that tapes are recorded onto magnetically.
You can effectively render the contents of a magnetic tape unusable with a strong magnet. There are special devices available known as bulk erasers that are perfect for the job. If you’ve got a lot to do and need to make sure that the tapes’ content is rendered unusable, you can get one for a reasonable price on eBay (see here).
