Fiberglass is the newest material that garage doors are going to be made out of and so as you might expect it is much harder to recycle. In fact there is currently only one company which is supposedly equipped to properly recycle something like a fiberglass garage door. This doesn’t mean you should chuck it to the curb when you are done with it, but most likely it will be going somewhere that it won’t be reused. Fiberglass does last a long time so the benefits of a fiberglass garage door may outweigh the fact that it cannot be recycled for some. If you are more earth conscious however it is best to go for another material from the get go.
Aluminum garage doors are going to be much easier to find a place for. The quality of the aluminum in garage doors in fact is good enough in the more expensive aluminum garage doors to actually warrant some reward for its recycling in some places. The tough part for most will be trying to find a place nearby that will recycle and pay for such a large piece of metal and the problem of transportation. In most cases you will need to bring the garage door to them in order to get any money out of the deal. If you are still interested then look around for local recycling centers that pay and find a way to get your old garage door there. Otherwise you may have to settle for just knowing that your garage door is going to a good cause somewhere out there. If that is the case then you can most likely let the city pick it up, the dump or your garage door professional may even haul it away for you when it gets replaced.
Wooden garage doors in many cases are already made from some portion of recycled wood. This means that from the start you have already done the eco-friendly thing by going with a responsibly sourced wooden garage door. Depending on if the wood has been treated with harmful chemicals really dictates what you should do with it once you find yourself replacing a wooden garage door. If you have got a relatively safe wooden garage door then you can use the garage door for some household projects, throw them in the wood chipper and more. If they are treated with some chemicals you would rather not have let loose on the world then you will most likely have to take them to a nearby dump and let them deal with them.
Steel garage doors are very similar to your aluminum garage doors. They can often be recycled and melted down for a fair bit of money if there is enough to them and the steel is still in good enough shape. If not then the garage door may need to simply be taken to your local dump or left for the city to come and collect. The same problem goes for the steel garage door as goes for the aluminum garage door. Transportation and the hassle of finding a place to get some money for your garage door may far outweigh the amount of money that you end up getting however if you are looking to get the most bang for your buck you can do some research and find out how much you may be able to get for your garage door and make that sort of decision for yourself.
If you don’t want to deal with the recycling of your garage door yourself you can certainly set something tup with most garage door professionals so that they will take the old garage door away as a part of your installation of a new garage door. For many this is the best route to go because it means that your “new garage door installation” doesn’t drag on for weeks as you wait for the days that the local dump accepts things like garage doors or for when the town comes to collect hard metal like a garage door. The days that your garage door might get picked up, along with the hassle of possibly needing to transport your garage door makes the whole process somewhat of a hassle. This however makes the option of having it all dealt with for you an attractive option as you save time and maybe even money in order to do the “earth conscious thing” so that you can not only feel good about your new garage door, but you can feel good about your old garage door.