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About the b-side.

tothmes

tothmes

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Food for thought on the environmental effects of vinyl, from The Guardian. Also, some interesting background info on the production chain:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...environmental-impact-music-industry-streaming

No one is saying one should stop listening to music on vinyl, but how about an audiofile campain for at least a less toxic production of the vinyl actually used? Strictly speaking, the vinyl in itself isn´t the main problem until it is incinerated or dumped, since it is reusable. Or?
 
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So, to sum up - stuff being made in the Western World is based on a raw material produced in the Far East using a method that is probably causing pollution.

I'm guessing that the next articles in the series will be "Water - Be careful, it's wet" and "Fire discovered to be very hot"
 
Most of my records were made decades ago, so they're fairly enviro-neutral at this point. It could be argued by keeping them in use I'm helping since they aren't getting landfilled.

I'm all on board with trying to cut down environmental impact, but I'm inclined to agree with @loudnoises about the real impact of records vs all the other stuff made of PVC. A car interior has a lot more of it, and those generally don't last nearly as long as a record does.
 
Not everything you hear is true. A bit of background, I work in electronics, and have for more than 35 years. I have 3 IPC instructor ratings, including J- Standard-001, which covers solder. ROHS, the Reduction Of Hazardous Substances doctrine, is a sham, or, at the very least, based on junk science. The primary concern is that lead from solder will find its way into the water-table, and poison everyone. A wonderful concern, and quite laudable. Except that lead doesn't leach out of solder and into the environment. Which is why, 20+ years on, we still use tin-lead solder. And Europe is still trying to dictate our environmental/climate policies.

Call me a cynic, no, hell, I"LL call me a cynic! I'm of the opinion that all these doom and gloom articles are more political tool than honest journalism. Anyone who is interested in knowing the toxic effects of a substance in or on the landscape can find this information. It's available. And MOST people are not interested. Until it is thrown in their faces, and they become activists, most of whom know little or nothing about the subject they seem so passionate about, only what they've read in articles aimed directly at them, with no disclaimers, or viable alternatives offered. THEN someone comes up with a safer, and most importantly, more expensive(higher profit margin) alternative, and EVERYONE is happy. And in 20 MORE years, we will have to deal with the environmental fallout from THAT...
 
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justjed2 said:
Not everything you hear is true. A bit of background, I work in electronics, and have for more than 35 years. I have 3 IPC instructor ratings, including J- Standard-001, which covers solder. ROHS, the Reduction Of Hazardous Substances doctrine, is a sham, or, at the very least, based on junk science. The primary concern is that lead from solder will find its way into the water-table, and poison everyone. A wonderful concern, and quite laudable. Except that lead doesn't leach out of solder and into the environment. Which is why, 20+ years on, we still use tin-lead solder. And Europe is still trying to dictate our environmental/climate policies.

Call me a cynic, no, hell, I"LL call me a cynic! I'm of the opinion that all these doom and gloom articles are more political tool than honest journalism. Anyone who is interested in knowing the toxic effects of a substance in or on the landscape can find this information. It's available. And MOST people are not interested. Until it is thrown in their faces, and they become activists, most of whom know little or nothing about the subject they seem so passionate about, only what they've read in articles aimed directly at them, with no disclaimers, or viable alternatives offered. THEN someone comes up with a safer, and most importantly, more expensive(higher profit margin) alternative, and EVERYONE is happy. And in 20 MORE years, we will have to deal with the environmental fallout from THAT...
Click to expand...


Yeah!!!

Nashou
 
Records seem to stand the test of time, so long as they are treated well. Even a lot of the old junk, like Lawrence Welk and the such, are being repurposed into artwork and trinkets.

An argument could be made that streaming is more environmentally friendly because there is no media. But what about the hardware? It pretty much has planned obsolescence built right in. After a few years your phone, tablet, smart speaker, Airpods, and smart TV/streaming box will all be obsolete.

Case and point: Sonos. They just stopped supporting their older gear. It'll probably continue working for a while... until it doesn't. Never fear, you can get a 30٪ discount on new Sonos gear, if you trade in your old gear. To do so, you have to place your old speakers in "recycle mode." Recycle mode "bricks" old Sonos speakers. They are unusable and unsellable at that point. All that can be done is "recycle" them. Do you think they are 100٪ recyclable? Me neither...

I am currently using speakers from the late 60's and early 70's, and a receiver and turntable from the late 70's. It all still works fine, and has no need for "recycle mode."

In the future, there will not be any vintage gear from today's streaming era. It will litter our landfills. The only vintage gear of the future from today will be the few surviving analog two-channel amps, turntables, passive speakers (maybe powered, if analog,) and, oh yeah, records.
 
To put things into perspective, I'd also really like to see numbers of how many tons of PVC in form of records have already been thrown away vs. how many tons of PVC in form of various other goods like for example alone isolations of cabling for in the meantime obsolete computer interfaces have already been thrown away. Because I also tend to regard records as long-lived products, that people will rather not throw away.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
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