Records going to landfill

[eine]

Does anyone know, have any links to, or care to estimate the amount of records that are thrown away or sent to landfill?

Vinyl and 78s?

Did this happen more in the past or is it still going on?

I can't seem to google anything, and I have no experience of waste or dumps. I suppose charity shops regularly throw away material they can't sell - or is that wrong, is it kept in circulation?

Does anyone know?

And as a side question, do you throw records away?

[mr sayers]

And as a side question, do you throw records away?

Occasionally I do this, some stuff is just not worth sending back to the charity shops as it will just sit there and clog them up, I the think the knock on effect of this is that they're not as keen to stock vinyl again. I also snap them so when they go to the land fill and actually go in, as opposed to some dealer getting them, some crap just needs to be took out of circulation IMO I know this sounds a bit harsh!

I know a lot of charity shops bin stuff when it doesn't shift, a lot of stuff we can't shift in Oxfam goes to 'Book barn', or theres a lady who makes fruit bowls etc out of them who gives us 10p each for them!

[medlar]

Occasionally I do this, some stuff is just not worth sending back to the charity shops as it will just sit there and clog them up, I the think the knock on effect of this is that they're not as keen to stock vinyl again. I also snap them so when they go to the land fill and actually go in, as opposed to some dealer getting them, some crap just needs to be took out of circulation IMO I know this sounds a bit harsh!

I know a lot of charity shops bin stuff when it doesn't shift, a lot of stuff we can't shift in Oxfam goes to 'Book barn', or theres a lady who makes fruit bowls etc out of them who gives us 10p each for them!

Oxfam making money out of crap knackered records. Who would have guessed!

[eclectiktronik]

You're on dangerous ground when you say stuf isn't worth sending back anywhere or must be kept out of circulation, even destroyed . This coming from a vinyl vulture too! Who is to say what's worthwhile and what isn't? If everyone had done this back in the 70s and 80s, we'd never have had our VV classics.

I never throw vinyl away - anything. Here is what I do with unsellable stuff!

[Brainbomb]

Still a lot end up in landfills over here. Know a guy who gets some records every nor and then from his dad who works at a landfill but picks up any vinyl he can see even though he's not allowed to. Nothing spectacular has ever surfaced though...

[mr sayers]

I'm sure when it's the likes of a 'best of Perry Como' it can be skipped IMO!

[medlar]

I'm sure when it's the likes of a 'best of Perry Como' it can be skipped IMO!

Ah, but if all the Perry Como's were skipped, then those few left that escaped that terrible fate would by logical extension become raers, no? And command hugh prices!

[mr sayers]

Ah, but if all the Perry Como's were skipped, then those few left that escaped that terrible fate would by logical extension become raers, no? And command hugh prices!

Not really..... Any one who liked/likes him is dead/dying that's why you can't move for them in charity shops, I'm pretty sure there's not a new generation of kids getting into them!

[medlar]

Not really..... Any one who liked/likes him is dead/dying that's why you can't move for them in charity shops, I'm pretty sure there's not a new generation of kids getting into them!

You are chucking away future ebay gold Mr Sayers

[mr sayers]

You are chucking away future ebay gold Mr Sayers

On my shoulders be it, I still think it's for the greater good of the record buying community!!!!!

[dickrambone]

I asked at our local tip a few years ago and the guy who worked there estimated that 10,000 records had been smashed and buried in one whole year at this tip.
Not every record sent to landfill is charity shop fodder, a couple of years ago an old dear sent an email to me which begun with this line "I have just taken 400 records to the tip and still have a handful left if you would like to come and view them."
Doh! if only she had emailed me first.
From that moment I tried to get a reuse centre opened locally, I wrote to the local MP who wrote back saying it was a great idea and give me contact details of who I should write to at the local council and when I did this they wrote back and claimed they couldn't afford to open one.
Turns out a couple of months later the barefaced liars had signed a £900 million pound deal with an incineration company.

[babycart]

I've chucked a good few battered and rubbish records out. There are no charity shops here, or none that want the stuff anyway.
The record goes in the PLASTIC, the sleeve in PAPER.
Don't know if they can be recycled, although I've read that millions were in the US during the 70s oil crisis. But then they probably made more records out of them

[eclectiktronik]

I think I'm going to install 'unwanted vinyl drop boxes' in the style of those metal clothes bins or used battery containers you see around! I reckon I could certainly do it at some of the gig venues and exhibiton spaces I frequent. Tescos might not be so obliging.
Don't dump vinyl, people - send it to me!

[babycart]

Don't dump vinyl, people - send it to me!

Happy to, if you'll pay the postage. I've got loads in the out-shelf.

I told some homeless skip-divers who come to the soup 'n' methadone kitchen I live near that I'd buy records off them a few years ago here, but only ever got two bags which I paid far too much for.
Nobody seems to throw ANYTHING out in Spain. There's a guy with a shop full of vintage decks and old TVs that he won't even let me look at let alone buy, and for years I've been sniffing after a massive Scandinavian radio station's 45 collection that I got one crack at before it was locked away.
A few years ago I got a skeleton key in order to check the trasteros (store rooms) in my mother-in-law's apartment block for damp. Every single one was an Aladdin's cave of vintage junk being kept for a rainy day.

[eine]

Thanks for replies all.

Reason I ask is that I'm working on something about recycling records for work and so after these replies, I have been doing some sleuthing...

I know a lot of charity shops bin stuff when it doesn't shift, a lot of stuff we can't shift in Oxfam goes to 'Book barn'

Thanks mr. s - I spoke to Book Barn and they said that while this was once the case, they don't deal in vinyl anymore. They take books from Oxfam still, of course.

I asked at our local tip a few years ago and the guy who worked there estimated that 10,000 records had been smashed and buried in one whole year at this tip.

I made a lot of calls to Sheffield council, and spoke to someone, finally, who runs the landfill where all the bin waste from Rotherham, Barnsley and some of Sheffield go to. Records would be general waste and not sorted so therefore he has no idea - 'one a week, thousand a week, a million a week, I couldn't tell you.' He suspected that most people would discard to the tip (and not via the bins), but figures are not kept as it's general waste. I tried speaking to someone on a tip site, but got nowhere, so yours is the best estimate for this, dick.

I phoned up a plastics recycler in Sheffield, who said that they occasionally get a call (every year or so) from someone with a couple of tonnes of records looking to recycle them ("you know, a couple of tonnes, a skip full"). They can't recyle them though.

i phoned up DEFRA and the Environment Agency who confirmed that no stats are taken about records. They are not recylcled outside pressing plants.

I thought I'd phone up the warehouse of a large second hand vinyl dealer - they said that about once a year a guy from Europe ("it might be Czechoslavakia") phones up and buys c. 5,000 of their dead stock that they can't sell for 1p a throw. This is recycled into records, presumably at the GZ plant.

Then I thought I'd phone up a vinyl presser. First up I spoke to a really helpful chap who explained that of the four remaining plants in the UK (Only Vinyl,
Phoenix, Vinyl Factory and Diamond Black), three of them recycle "a lot" of the vinyl they press. They punch out the label bit which is useless and grind up what's left. This is drawn from second hand, dead stock, returns from record companies and their own waste. He said that even the phrase 'virgin vinyl' is often a misnomer - sometimes it means composed of vinyl that hasn't left the plant, so mispressings and trimmings. He said too that even the best records are made with a bit of recyled vinyl (to make them hard).

Then I spoke to one of those four pressing plants - the smallest of the four in fact. They recyle a lot of the records they make. The last year has been really slow for them, and so they have only taken a tonne or two a month. They buy from charities, old shops, distributors, anyone. It doesn't matter if they are second hand or unsold new stock. 1p a record is about right.

He added that that the vinyl made prior to five years ago is better quality but can't be made now due to "European directives", so they will always recycle with at least some of this vinyl in. Records older than 30 years are not that good to use.

He estimates that across the country much more is thrown away than reaches a pressing plant to be recycled. This is down to the transportation costs - you have to make it economical to transport to one of the four pressing plants in the country for a penny a record.

Shellac is just trashed.

I never throw vinyl away - anything. Here is what I do with unsellable stuff!

Love your stuff Ben!

[Joe M'geek]

All my local charity shops throw out stuff they think they can't sell, and all the best stuff I've ever had has come from the rare occasions I've managed to go through the 'for the bin pile'.

The one that styles itself as a proper record shop is the worst. Someone on here found a copy of 'Second Hand' on Polydor in their bin (sleeve issues innit )

I haven't found anything good in there for a year or so since they adopted an EXish and better only policy, and before that I regularly shelled significant amounts for proper buys- including a UK jazz lp on Tempo that had half the sleeve missing and I still managed to flip for £150...

Depressing innit!

[mr sayers]

In our region a lot of stuff goes to the skip, but a local dealer has a deal were they give him a ring when they get some, Ive had some great stuff off him, stuff that was heading for the land fill.

[Plainstone]

I've heard tales of vinyl from these shores being shipped to China where it is used to make toothbrushes.

Oh, and on the subject of taking records out of circulation ...

[The Divine One]

Whenever I ask at any dump they all tell me they get records all the time, but they just trash them. Our local dump is a re-cycling centre - you'd think the best form of re-cycling would be re-USING but they don't seem too interested in letting the public rake around taking, or even buying, stuff. Maybe local dealers have it sown up...

Think a few people on here have alluded to dealers who have arrangements with the local dump, where they have to buy ALL the vinyl. I love the idea of dealers buying up all this chud, then being careful not to dump it on their own turf - so driving 100 miles to dump it at another re-cycling centre, which has its own OWN vinyl guy. Who then drives 100 miles and dumps it all back at the original place...

A few years back I would NEVER chuck records in the bin - now I accept that sometimes they are just too battle-wounded to go back into action. And it saves any other digger the pain of pulling out a trashed sleeveless Bo Diddley album which will only be bought out of a "I can't NOT buy this" mentality, and a few months later it'll just end up back in a charity shop where the process will repeated endlessly...

[JGBollard]

And as a side question, do you throw records away?

I binned about 60 - 70 LPs (all worthless and/or tatty crap) this weekend because I didn't think them worth sending on to a chazza.

The record goes in the PLASTIC, the sleeve in PAPER.

You can't put records in the plastic bin here in Stockport but I do put the sleeve in the paper bin.

[kestrel blazer]

At one of my local charity shops the 'record man' had not been in for a couple of weeks so they resorted to having to put all the records out. Atomic Rooster 'Death Walks...', Half Man Half Biscuit 'Back In The DHSS', Mott The Hoople 'Wildlife' were three I bought. Slight wear to the sleeves, and records needed a little cleaning. The records on the shelves were run of the mill rubbish, but in pristine condition. I told them people buy this kind of stuff, the lady behind the counter said the manageress does not like 'worn' looking items in the shop, and these would have been bin bound. Madness said I, 'Definitely no Madness albums upstairs' Said she.

[vinylism]

Much though it pains me to do so, I've taken to throwing away (recycling) records, mostly dead charity stuff and classical guff a neighbour gave me. There's only so many vinyl fruit bowls one person needs.

[babycart]

There's only so many vinyl fruit bowls one person needs.

Vinyl fruit bowls are so 2008. It's all about vinyl notebook binders these days.

Whip one of these containing your wants list out in the charity shop and watch the smartphone popsikers skulk away in shame.

[vinylism]

Vinyl fruit bowls are so 2008. It's all about vinyl notebook binders these days.

Whip one of these containing your wants list out in the charity shop and watch the smartphone popsikers skulk away in shame.

Ooh, that is nice! Can i get one with a Tago Mago label?

[Headless mermaid]

I def throw away loads of punts that are to sad to trade in or even give to charity.

Is landfill actually 10.000s of records melted and put in the ground? Isn't that toxic? Here we just incenerate them, not sure if that's less toxic though...

Heard some unused scenes from the director's cut of Wicker Man was going to be used for roadfill in the UK but they rescued the film spools just in time. Amazing.