I have had an old 13″ television around for years. Its picture tube had pretty much died, and yesterday it gave up the ghost entirely.

I had some vague memory that TVs, like computer monitors, shouldn’t be tossed into a landfill, so I went to the city’s Department of Environmental Services website to see how I could responsibly dispose of the thing. I eventually found a page which told me that Best Buy will take back televisions and other appliances for a $10 recycling fee. Since the nearest store is about 1 1/2 miles away, I thought that was easily enough done.

I loaded the thing into the car and took it to Best Buy, where I learned that, yes indeed they will take my TV for $10, but they’ll turn right around and give me a $10 gift card for my trouble. “Not bad,” I thought. “Sure I’m out $10, but I’ll get something in return that I can use for something I want next time I’m in the store. Sounds good to me.” So I turned it in, got my card, and then . . . remembered that my brother-in-law’s birthday was this weekend.

Upshot was, I spent an additional $4 to get a CD for him. Best Buy made out by getting $14 in revenue (and reducing its newly-issued $10 of liability), I made out by doing something good with my dead piece of electronics, and my brother-in-law got a new CD. It’s hard to say anybody lost in all of that.