Not long ago I finally took the plunge and purchased a new HDTV for my living room. Before this time I had been using an old tube TV for several years. But, when the tube TV finally stopped working, I decided to see what all the fuss was over this HDTV stuff.

First things first, though, I needed to dispose of the old TV which I considered too large to just put out on the front curb of my house. Even after living in the city for years I had no idea where to take and dispose large appliances in the Roanoke area.

I have always known to put modest piles of brush and other smaller items either in the garbage container or out on the front curb. But, what to do with big stuff that I want to get rid of? The answer is to take it to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority which I learned about after inquiring with the City of Roanoke. (I suppose as a citizen I should have known about it already, but I honestly had no idea about the place.)

So, I called a friend to help and we loaded the TV and headed out to Hollins Road off of Route 460 to the RVRA. I went this past Saturday and there was a little line waiting to get in but things moved pretty quickly.

Entrance to Roanoke Valley Resource Authority

The whole process there was fairly easy. Just pull up, get in line, drive onto a scale, and then drive up and into a building where all of the stuff is dumped. We just drove inside the building and unloaded the TV and that was that. (I took pictures of everything but I thought it was awkward to post pictures of garbage!)

Roanoke Valley Resource Authority

Apparently trains run underneath the building and all of the stuff is dumped into them and then hauled away via these box cars.

Roanoke Valley Resource Authority

So, after bidding farewell to my old TV I was able to check out what it’s like to have HDTV in Roanoke. I’m going to talk about that in a future post.

Have a good weekend!