Today’s Question: What’s the best option for getting rid of or discarding all those old Kodachrome and Fuji color slides? Just the garbage can? I did recycle the boxes.
Tim’s Quick Answer: To my knowledge, there is no option for recycling color slide film, though the slide mounts can be removed and recycled. It is possible, on the other hand, to recycle black and white film.
More Detail: In terms of analog photos, the primary potential for recycling is the silver in black and white negatives. As far as I know, there isn’t a way to recycle color slides. So, beyond the mounts and boxes, the slide film can only be discarded in the trash.
Of course, you might also consider whether the analog photos might be of value to someone else, such as a nature conservatory or historical organization. Depending on the subject matter of the photos, there may be an organization that would be happy to take the images of your hands. Of course, they also might be just as happy to have digital versions of the images, rather than taking the analog originals.
I imagine there are other options, but one company I found that apparently still recycles black and white film is GreenDisk, although you do pay to have that film processed. You can get more details here:
https://www.greendisk.com/gdsite/accept.aspx
