Will Physical Media be viewed as poor for the environment decades from now?

guitarfishbay

A thought I had recently...

Could be seen to apply to music CDs, Tapes, Vinyl, VHS, DVD, Blu Ray, and also books, comic books, cookery books, even Newspapers.

Realistically most of the content can now be consumed digitally, with an assumed lower cost to the environment.

So is it ethical to continue to champion the creation and shipping of physical media in the digital age?  Many years from now, will people view physical media as an environmental issue?

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I can see that many businesses and indeed business models continue to rely on physical media as a delivery model.  For example the monetisation and value of food recipes is completely different between print and digital.  So I wonder how much money is a factor in the ongoing production of physical media.  Looking at the effects of the internet on the music industry I do wonder what will happen to all other forms of physical media as technology improves, older pre-internet generations pass away, and fast and unlimited [also mobile] internet connections become the norm.

darthed1981

It already IS an environmental issue.

It's just far enough down the list that it doesn't get discussed much.

If we have fixed energy, food production and industrial over production, I suspect the world can spare you a CD or two!

chillidoggy

The next generation of hipsters will be buying CD's up without having a CD player.

Ravenous

Recycle all your old Beatles discs as Oasis ones.

Physical media will be considered bad, but so will the amount of energy and resources (especially rare elements) required to produce the computers we play digital stuff on.

The way I see it, when most of the world can afford to own digital stuff (and that day will come), then digital will be a major drain on world resources, much like the old paper media was.

Sporky

Ravenous said:

Physical media will be considered bad, but so will the amount of energy and resources (especially rare elements) required to produce the computers we play digital stuff on.

Don't forget the data centres - some of them are colossal and use huge amounts of power.

guitarfishbay

True - the life cycle of digital devices does need to be taken into account as well.  I actually hadn't thought of that, clearly still a novice environmentalist lol..

Ravenous

Sporky said:

Don't forget the data centres - some of them are colossal and use huge amounts of power.

Oh, true. I'd forgotten about that.

At the moment very few of us have stuff always on the net. One day it'll be half of the world. Each of us carrying devices that transmit our location, our pulse rate, shoe size, and god knows what useless crap to datacentres somewhere.

It'll be a hungry system, that's for sure.

mellowsun

Not sure about paper as it's a renewable resource and the inks are more environmentally friendly these days.

But plastics are are major polluter. The amount going into the oceans and landfill is unsustainable and at crisis point.

Evilmags

So far down the list of issues affecting humankind as to be an irrelevance. Look at how much ordinace is let off each year, blowing up vast swathes of countryside and urban areas. Paper pulp is largely recycled these days and the industry has shrunk enormously, digital becomes less power hungry and more efficient at an exponential rate, devices that access it likewise. Solar energy in hot countries easily powers a full house if you have a tesla battery or two for back up. Whole thing moves so fast that predicting the future is about as sensible as stuffing scorpions up your arse. 

crunchman

Not a big issue - the amount of plastic in a CD and case is very small compared with what we use for packaging our food.

It's not like you are chucking them out the next day either.

It would make a lot more sense for the econuts to go after all the plastic tat aimed at kids in things like Happy Meals and Kinder Eggs.  That's normally in the bin within a week.

darthed1981

guitarfishbay said:

True - the life cycle of digital devices does need to be taken into account as well.  I actually hadn't thought of that, clearly still a novice environmentalist lol..

Currently, manufacturers make and market digital equipment for a very short lifespan.

Ironically, ignore the marketing, and it isn't that inefficient at all.  Most smartphones would easily last four years, then go for refurb and a new battery, then last another four.  The fact people want a new one after one year is because the latest greatest yet functionally basically identical device is shoved down their throats.  Also, it's because people like nice things.

Foster

I wonder how many landfills are full of AOL CDs?