Hello! I run the laser department at ForgeGreensboro.org in Greensboro, NC, USA. We’re doing some cleaning up, and figure we need to come up with an actual solution for disposing of our old tubes and lenses. The ZnSe lenses are poisonous, and the tubes have at least some of the ZnSe material in them as well if I’m not mistaken. The toxic waste disposal facility here in my city doesn’t take ZnSe. I want to dispose of this stuff properly. Does anyone have any suggestions? What are you doing with these things yourselves? Thanks!
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I’ve never changed my mirrors…
I’d suggest calling one of the waste disposal people they should know where you can get rid of these safely… Doubt they’re recyclable so you’ll probably have to pay them. I suspect you don’t have a truck load of them, do you?
As far as the tube goes, my old one is atop the cabinet that hold all my old amateur radio tubes… I made a clear acrylic holder for it to sit in…
Someone saw it and offered me $80 for it … never know what some considers art, however I have a few tubes I’m attached to… Wonder how much they’d of offered if it was in a nice plexiglass box…
Just a thought… might not be as worthless as you think under the right circumstances…
My 2 cents…
Are you a private teaching organization?
I commend you on the thought here, most people throw, even the toxic stuff, away… out of sight out of mind…
We are a nonprofit makerspace with the largest membership in the southeast US, and I’m told that our two larger lasers are the most heavily used pieces of equipment in the whole place.
We have a toxic waste disposal location here in town, but they apparently won’t take ZnSe.
We have three tubes that need proper disposal, and maybe a dozen busted lenses we’ve accumulated over the years. Through a corporate partnership, we’re undergoing our first thorough facilities assessment and this is one of the things we’re finally trying to get buttoned up. I’m absolutely not going to throw these things in the trash––ZnSe is horribly poisonous, and is terrible for fish if it gets into streams and rivers.
Thanks.
Be a good question for your legislator… I bet if you queried you state legislators office on how to dispose of these, they’d be cornered into finding out for you…
If all else fails, try politics 
Good luck
Well that’s an idea!
If you can make it sound like votes may be generated … you got’em 