The Cost of Music
Hi everyone!
In today’s post I will be briefly covering the different formats of music and how each of them impacts the environment in their own way. While there is quite an extensive list of possible music formats to talk about, I will be mainly focusing on 4 types: Vinyl Records, Cassette Tapes, Compact Discs (CDs) and Digital Music.
Let us first look at the infographic blow:
At first glance, it may not make much sense to you why these music formats have such a huge impact on the environment through both plastic and air pollution. so, let me break it down for you.
Vinyl
Starting off with vinyl, we can see that it is the 2nd most pollutant format in terms of plastic pollution and the 3rd most pollutant format in terms of air pollution. It is a common misconception to think that all vinyl can be recycled. While it is true that the cardboard casing that the vinyl record in placed in can be recycled, the vinyl record itself cannot.
This high amount of environmental pollution is not only because vinyl is made from a very pollutant type of plastic called PVC, but also because the entire production process of vinyl is not environmentally friendly. Michal Sterba, the CEO of Czech-based GZ Media (a company UK labels use for manufacturing), has even said that “Vinyl record is not the most ecological product in the world. A lot of steam, a lot of chilling, questionable process during the galvanics, the compound itself contains PVC, it’s very difficult to recycle in the end”.
Since this blog post is just a brief overview of the pollutive aspects of the different formats of music, I will be going into more detail about the many pollutive aspects of vinyl and its production specifically in my next blog post.
Cassette tape
Cassette tapes on the other hand are the 3rd most pollutant in terms of plastic pollution and the 4th most pollutant in terms of air pollution. Cassette tapes were manufactured after vinyl as a more compact way to store music. However, even though its size decreased, there was not much of a decrease in the amount of pollution it generated.
Although still a problem, the outer plastic casing of the cassette is not the main problem as it is able to be recycled if disposed of properly. What causes the most pollution is the magnetic strip in the cassette as it is unable to be recycled and causes hazardous air pollutant emissions when disposed of and incinerated in landfills.
Compact Disc
Moving on to compact discs (CDs), they are the most pollutant in terms of plastic pollution and the 2nd most pollutant in terms of air pollution. According to Eco Coalition, “each year, billions of CDs are manufactured, while millions of these discs are thrown in the trash”. Even though CDs are made of high value recyclable materials such as polycarbonate plastic and aluminum, majority of CDs end up in landfills due to improper disposal of it in normal bins instead of recycling bins. As such, these CDs cause damage to our environment as they do not break down readily in landfills and the burning of them through incineration releases toxic fumes into the atmosphere.
Additionally, the plastic casing that holds the CDs (known as jewel cases) are disposed of even more often than the CDs themselves. Improper disposal of such jewel cases contributes to both plastic and air pollution. However, there have been attempts to try and solve this issue through more eco-friendly CD cases that are made of other materials such as cardboard and I will explore these alternatives in a later blog post.
Digital Music
Lastly, let’s talk about digital music. Looking at the infographic above, you have probably noticed that digital music generates the least amount of plastic waste but the most amount of greenhouse gas emissions of all the music formats. This means that they are the least pollutant in terms of plastic pollution but the most pollutant in terms of air pollution.
But how can that be? How can something that is purely digital cause such a large impact on our environment?
Well, the act of streaming music digitally actually causes high amounts of greenhouse gas emissions due to the amount of energy it takes to stream the music. According to a study by Dr Kyle Devine of the University of Oslo, the amount of greenhouse gasses generated by the energy needed to transmit music for streaming is estimated to be between 200 and 350 million kilograms.
If you think about it, for all other formats of music mentioned above, once they have been produced and purchased, the amount of impact it has on the environment can already be determined. However, for digital music that requires streaming, the amount of impact on the environment is determined based on the number of times it is streamed by the listener. The more times it is streamed, the higher the environmental impact. Additionally, due to the convenience of streaming music digitally, it is highly likely that they would listen to streamed music more times than they would music on other formats, thus resulting in a higher negative environmental impact.
I will go into more detail about how exactly the energy use from the streaming of music results in large amounts of GHG emissions in a later blog post, so stay tuned for that.
I hope this overview has shed a light on how the different formats of music impact the environment in their own way. In the next few blog posts, I’ll dive deeper into each individual format, where I will explain in greater detail how each of them causes environmental pollution.
References:
Don’t Trash Your old CDs, Recycle Them. (2010, April 29). Retrieved September 03, 2020, from http://ecocoalition.org/don’t-trash-your-old-cds-recycle-them/
Plastic Pollution Coalition. (2016, July 02). Recording Artists Leave a Plastic Legacy. Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2016/7/2/recording-artists-leave-a-plastic-legacy
Wilson, J. (2019, March 14). Dark side of the vinyl: Are records bad for the environment? Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/03/dark-side-of-the-vinyl-are-records-bad-for-the-environment/
Blistein, J. (2019, May 24). Is Streaming Music Dangerous to the Environment? One Researcher Is Sounding the Alarm. Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/environmental-impact-streaming-music-835220/