American’s love TV, thats science, don’t argue. They love it so much that they want to “upgrade” it all the time. Not content with normal TV, the want to upgrade to HIGH DEF (yo!), or DIGITAL 1080i (man!), or they want PLASMA (dude!), or WIDE SCREEN (wow!), or WHATEVER (yeah!). Then someone got the good idea that the analog signal just wasn’t good enough for TV what it needs is a shot of 1s and 0s. So in a couple months a million perfectly good televisions will suddenly become useless because they will not be able to pick up a digital signal.

The Plague of Zombie TVs is born. I imagine the millions of dead TVs will rise from the landfills and stalk the earth looking for brains to eat as undead zombie TVs (which is pretty much what they did while they were alive). However our good “friends” at the Consumer Electronics Association (never trust an organization that calls you a consumer) say we need not fear a mass of undead electronics that feel no pain and hunger only for your delicious, tasty, brains.

According to a new study released today by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), called ‘Trends in Consumer Electronics (CE) Afterlife’ (See they are talking about Zombies!) show that households receiving broadcast signals only over-the-air (OTA) expect to remove fewer than 15 million televisions from their homes through 2010, ninety-five percent of which will be sold, donated or recycled. Most OTA-only households expect to buy a digital converter box (48%) and continue using the same TV. The sad fact behind this one is that this means that 15 MILLION new TVs will be created. Which means 15 MILLION more TV’s worth of heavy metals, water pollution, slave sweatshop labor, etc.

“Consumers are far more likely to recycle, reuse, give away or sell analog TVs than throw them away” says CEA’s Senior Director of Market Research Tim Herbert. “While some have speculated that millions of TVs would enter the waste stream, this new study suggests that is not the case” He went on to say that the only way to kill a zombie was to smash its brains in and under no circumstance should you light them on fire. The crowd responded “duh, everyone knows that a zombie lit on fire is now an insatiable eating machine, that is ON FIRE!”

Recycling is an increasingly common way to dispose of unused TVs. In fact, according to the survey, consumers report recycling nearly 30 percent more TVs in 2007 than in 2005. That trend also extends to other CE categories. While only three percent more devices were removed from homes in 2007, twenty-seven percent more devices were recycled. At the same time, the number of CE products that end up in the trash is decreasing-down 7 percent from two years earlier.

“We see a very positive trend developing when it comes to CE afterlife” notes Herbert. “A full 87 percent of consumers say it’s important to recycle their CE devices. Not only is traditional recycling an increasingly popular option for consumers, but the vast majority of consumers report that they give away or sell unused devices, which is also a form of recycling”

Among those consumers that did report throwing away a TV in the last year, 42 percent reported that they weren’t aware of recycling programs for electronics. Let us pray they know how to use a shotgun.

“It’s terrific to see more consumers being more thoughtful and proactive about the responsible disposal of their electronics devices” added Herbert. “However, there is still much to be done in terms of educating consumers about the options for electronics recycling” He went on to mention that everyone should have a zombie preparedness kit, lots of ammo, nails, hammers, and plenty of wood to board up the windows. He also made an extra effort to stress that once grandma gets bitten it is only a matter of time before she rises from the dead and tries to kill you, and that the best option is to “deal with her” before this happens.

CEA’s consumer website, www.myGreenElectronics.org educates consumers about the responsible use, reuse and recycling of electronics and also includes a zip-code searchable database of electronics recyclers.

Don’t let your television end up in the landfill, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for the TV zombie apocalypses, would you?!