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!