Alternative materials for records?

[Jim Williams]

The amount of oil used to produce vinyl records is as they say, a drop in the bucket.

My dad once told me, "don't sweat the small stuff".

This is very small stuff. You can always buy or burn a CD.

If you really want to protect the enviroment, don't have kids.

[JohnRoberts]

If you want to hug the planet embrace MP3s...

Oil is our friend, and may end up, more valuable some day to make plastic bags than power our cars, but not for a while.

JR

[ds11]

melted-down disco records.

recycling

[ripple_fx1]

cheese.

[zvukofor]

FLAC or ALAC files are most environment friendly, bringing raw quality at a half of a weight! ))
Serious, man, our demonic culture has nothing to do with a healthy being. Still killing animals to eat? Still pumping oil to drive fast? It will not last long, but nothing apocalyptical too.
The best and environment friendly music is live acoustic music, like good old folk, blues, jazz, gospel, bhajan, etc. All other things are just temporary filthy toys. Saying that, i'm still making electronic music, but at least i have a guitar and accordeon to play real )

Want to be environmental conscious? Stop eating animals firstly.

[Pezz]

HEMP!!!

[Lotus 7]

Walk to live classical concerts!
Remember "heavy metal" killed Beethoven*

*Ref: Martin, Russell: Beethoven's Hair.
ISBN 0-7679-0351-X

[tINY]

You could make vinyl from plant materials... But, comparatively, oil/nat gas is soo cheap, nobody really is developing processes for anything else.





-tINY

[Dene]

cool question...just should point out there is a lot of recycled vinyl in records as it stands...although they usually add a bit of virgin material, completely virgin vinyl records isn't something you come across these days.

[FullCount]

Originally Posted by Reuts

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Oil is not very environmentally friendly and is a finite resource. A lot of people who are really into buying records are also environmentally conscious. So, I was thinking, why not make records out of some other material?

Maybe records made from Sunflower seed oil or vegetable oil? Or some other material? Synthetic?

Is there anyway this would be impossible or degrade fidelity, durability? Vinyl is a pretty durable material.

If you're so worried about oil consumption then you might want to stop eating food. The oil used to fertilize, transport, package your food far exceeds 1+ oil calorie burned for food calorie produced.

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

If you really want to protect the enviroment, don't have kids.

^ ding ding ding

[Paul Gold]

Originally Posted by Reuts

Maybe records made from Sunflower seed oil or vegetable oil? Or some other material? Synthetic?

It might work. How would you fund the R&D?

[Paul Gold]

Originally Posted by Dene

cool question...just should point out there is a lot of recycled vinyl in records as it stands...although they usually add a bit of virgin material, completely virgin vinyl records isn't something you come across these days.

This is not true. I know of a couple plants that don't have a good regrind system and use 100% virgin. Records actually come out quieter with properly prepared regrind. Plants are happy to charge extra for 100% virgin. You think you're getting a better record and they save the precious regrind.

[Dene]

Originally Posted by Paul Gold

This is not true. I know of a couple plants that don't have a good regrind system and use 100% virgin. Records actually come out quieter with properly prepared regrind. Plants are happy to charge extra for 100% virgin. You think you're getting a better record and they save the precious regrind.

Guess you learn something everyday...I will keep my open for that...