Talks over TV lead waste

File Photo / NZ Herald

The Government is discussing with Australia a joint processing plant to extract toxic lead from the millions of televisions likely to be dumped when the old analogue signal is switched off in favour of digital TV in two years.

Environment Minister Nick Smith yesterday told Parliament a record 77,000 items weighing 900 tonnes were collected in last Saturday's Government-funded eDay.

He said a surge of about 500,000 older TVs containing about 1000 tonnes of lead was expected.