RE: Disposing old tapes

I have found tape to be a pretty tough item. I fired into a reel of tape,
edgewise, and didn't get much penetration. Two variables to consider:
One, I wasn't shooting a .50cal BMG. Two, I failed to secure the reel
from scooting back, which helped to disperse some of the energy. But
maybe it's better to disperse it that way than to risk a ricochet.

On that diskette analogy... Magnets were used, and the files were
corrupted. BUT the files were still there and I'm guessing that many of
the sectors were recoverable.

1-Reinitialize the tapes with CLEAR(*YES), if you still have the hardware
to do so.
2-Use your magnets
3-Consider chemical destruction. Test strips of tapes into various
chemicals and see how it reacts. Be real nice if the liquid later turns
out to be combustible.
4-Burn the media. However, if the quantity of media is enough that the
local FD will arrive and threaten to fine you for burning tires (been
there, done that on a real tire burn) then you may want to rethink this.

Here, we mostly use CLEAR(*YES) and sell them to the used tape market.
Actually the most enviornmentally friendly solution.

The firearm experiement was on really old tapes with no resale value and
no hardware to CLEAR(*YES).

Rob Berendt