People are paying to break printers with sledgehammers in smash rooms

But there’s trouble in this rage-fueled paradise. The metals, gases and batteries inside consumer electronics are bad for our bodies, environmental experts say. Now some local governments are prohibiting smash rooms from breaking electronics at all, leaving smash room owners hunting for new objects at which customers may direct their ire.

Peter Wolf, who owns Los Angeles-based smash room Rage Ground, had to stop offering printers entirely after his local government stopped businesses like his from smashing them. Wolf pivoted and started giving customers more plates and furniture, but in the beginning it was tough to bring in customers without promising them technology to smash, he said.

“All these rage rooms are individual small businesses, so it’s really up to each one to find a solution that works for them in terms of getting inventory that’s not electronics for a price that people want to smash and how creative they get in solving that issue,” Wolf said. “Some will be able to adjust, and others will fail.”

When Wolf visited a rival room and saw it still offered electronics, he reported the company to the fire department, he said.

“​​As this is an active ongoing investigation, we cannot share any additional information related to the case at this time,” said Fariba Khaledan, supervising hazardous materials specialist at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s website says that while rage rooms themselves aren’t illegal, smashing up “e-waste” including printers is. It will investigate any rage rooms that smash e-waste and offer a button for visitors to report new rage rooms in their area as an environmental concern.

What’s happening in Los Angeles could happen in other places, said Sarah Murray, who oversees Wisconsin’s statewide electronics recycling program at the Department of Natural Resources. The department has been visiting local rage rooms to get a sense of what’s getting smashed and whether there’s a risk to consumers, she said.

How we deal with aging or malfunctioning electronics affects not just our communities, but the whole globe, said Carlton Waterhouse, a law professor at Howard University and director of the law school’s Environmental and Climate Justice Center. Many of our gadgets emit dangerous chemicals when smashed up, and anything with a lithium iron battery is at risk of catching on fire or exploding. People who come in contact with improperly recycled electronics — including vulnerable people overseas who search through landfills for re-sellable parts — are at risk for adverse health effects, Waterhouse said.

Smash-room operators can mitigate these risks by stripping electronics of their batteries and motherboards ahead of time or asking consumers to avoid smashing the recyclable chunks of cars or computers.

Larry Franklin, co-owner of Lose It Rage Room in Woodbridge, Va., said his company always strips electronics of their motherboards, batteries and other hazardous parts before offering them to customers. He hasn’t heard any rumors of his local government regulating printer-smashing, but if it happened, he’s confident business would still be okay, he said.

“It doesn’t really matter as long as they have something to go at,” Franklin said. “They want to yell, scream and cry. That’s pretty much the gist of it.”

But the bigger problem, Waterhouse said, is that electronics companies purposely design products that break or fall out of fashion. Then those products pile up in landfills — or smash rooms.

We need a new model for reusing or refurbishing our end-of-life printers, Waterhouse said. And if that happens, we also might need a new target for our aggression.