Bio vinyl, sustainability, vinyl record plants promoting it etc

[mossboss]

I would like to know what are the views of people on the above as well as some other aspects of the current trends on sustainability in the industry
Bio Vinyl
What can we learn, what can we do, what is it, how it is presented to the public Do we have all the knowledge and all aspects of Bio Vinyl?
Sustainable pressing plants, environmentally friendly
What makes the what are they doing how it is impacting the industry
Environmentally responsible vinyl record distribution
What is the situation with distribution transport related as well as what is currently practiced
Please chip in if you are involved in the game or have a view which you like to express regardless
Best

[symatic]

I don't know much about bio vinyl I'm afraid. But I try to keep my packaging plastic free (card mailers, kraft tape) and I don't use shrink wrap. I just see this as a way of avoiding posting non-compostable trash to people.

Would love to know more about bio vinyl and what the pressing plants could offer sustainability wise though!

[Aussie0zborn]

Hmm. “We’ll be the world’s greenest pressing plant but still ship our product all over the world, even to countries that have numerous pressing plants regardless of the carbon footprint our shipping creates”.

Bio vinyl sounds like a good idea but if you are serious about being “green”, why not limit your market to your local area? There are enough pressing plants around the world to allow the customer to press in each region they sell to. This avoids the carbon-spewing shipping of a heavy and bulky product but nobody will do it so the commitment to a greener planet is half hearted or as we say in Australia, “half assed”.

What’s the impact you say? Well the “world’s greenest pressing plant” Deepgrooves in Holland who even commissioned an audit into how green they were recently went bankrupt. It seems they impacted themselves. They offered their pressing services to us in Australia on an almost monthly basis for a long while. We already have three pressing plants here and soon there will be five so there is no need for us to press overseas but these “green” plants don’t mind shipping their product to the other side of the world.

Minimising your carbon footprint - as we all should - is a good thing but it seems that any attempt to be the world’s “greenest” pressing plant is mostly just marketing hype.

Slightly unrelated but for sustainability of the industry as a whole, I would suggest that retail prices need to come down. Some Christmas specials from JB Hi-Fi, Australia’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and media:

The Bee Gees LP $105 / CD $12.99
INXS LP $81.99 / CD $12.99
Bruce Springsteen LP $84.99 / CD $19.99
Smashng Pumpkins LP $89.99 / No CD

[mossboss]

Green-washing is the term, quite an interesting situation in the industry at the moment,
Eco-LP PET injection moulded records is telling the world that that they don't use gas or steam plus they use recycled PET material, how is that material melted down so as to be injected into the mould plus what runs the machine?
Electricity I guess, in Germany! having shut down their Nuclear power plants they went back to coal!!!
I think there is one nuclear plant remaining, it was to be shut down but it seems that it was given another lease for 10 more years
Sure since 75% of records in Australia are imported that's really not a good situation for emissions but tell that to the majors who tip a bit of money here and there for the incumbents in the greening music in Australia movement I am sure elsewhere in the world
In so far as another 2 players here in Australia, They are welcome in our huge market!!!
Deepgrooves going bust, is no surprise, Europe has a population of 740 Million this was a new plant, jumping on a train of green records almost as their mantra, other plants are suffering there as well as in the USA in a market with a population 340 Million 15 times ours here, is a fair indication of the state of the industry, over capacity globally and every one out there is offering some kind of sustainability story to attract customers
So in our home here in Australia the decisions as to what is going to be pressed and distributed is taken in some headquarters office elsewhere which of course requires shipping of the records adding a substantial cost resulting in the prices you posted up, that does not reflect the price that records are sold by a band produced locally and distributed to the retail stores which is around the $50-60 mark or sold at the bands gigs which is even lower
I don't see that changing anytime soon if ever at least in Australia since the majors are controlled and managed somewhere overseas leaving their office people here with little or no input on the matter
In so far as the take-up of bio-vinyl by existing manufacturers at present it is a very small quantity judging by what the various raw material suppliers are telling me, besides the cost being almost double there are issues in processing the material which is extremely sensitive to temperature fluctuations creating a host of issues on the final product
May be if all these people who wish to have an eco-friendly music listening experience stick with downloads rather than wanting their music on a vinyl record
Interesting times for a medium that has been around for 100 odd years
We will see what comes out of all that in times ahead
Best

[untitledthe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmtYTuMjx_A

A docu of Coldplay on 70% recycled and 30% virgin PET injection molded records at Sonopress. Very nice to have a look in the kitchen at Sonopress, as far as i understand they designed their mouldpackages from scratch or are they Laserdisc mouldpackages? Anyone recognise it? After this video it made me wonder how things are going for the Dutch PET injection molding venture Green Vinyl Records, to my suprise hardly any online presence anymore. Perhaps rebranding?

[Aussie0zborn]

More than likely new moulds seeing as laserdiscs were made of two halves bonded together, if I’m not mistaken. The most impressive thing I saw there was a VMS70-DMM lathe. Flo has excelled once again! Anybody notice the video camera installed on top of the existing Leitz microscope?

[misjah]

More than likely new moulds seeing as laserdiscs were made of two halves bonded together, if I’m not mistaken. The most impressive thing I saw there was a VMS70-DMM lathe. Flo has excelled once again! Anybody notice the video camera installed on top of the existing Leitz microscope?

looks exactly like mine. wonder why they took of the flokason badge off the head.

[flozki]

looks exactly like mine. wonder why they took of the flokason badge off the head.

because as usual pressure was high and we just forgot. they asked all the time. but lowest on the prority list.haha
no one was thinking of having this documented already in early stage.
well the connaisseurs will recognize. thats the important thing.

and the whole project shows how to make records in 2025 if money is not the limiting factor.this is not an old flexi moulding machine.
this is a brand new, state of the art injection moulding machine. really a step further in technology.
at least little kids who had good old TTT's or worn out Toolex back in the days where impressed.

happy cutting. f.

[andybee]

IMHO a nice invention by sonopress, in the 70ies injection moulding was used for 7inches by Philips, but with different material (polysterene?),
I think this is no greenwahsing, but you have to calculate. You don´t need steam for mould heating, but the injection
moulding machines need also a kind of power, hydraulics, cooling etc.
As you can´t put the labels inside while the pressing process, an additional step is needed to glue the labels to the record.
As mentioned in the video, quality is really good, I have a record here. The record is perfectly flat, no groove guard profile,
nice edges, really a good product, I hope, not to late...

[andybee]

if it makes sense, to collect old plastic bottles, ship them arround the world plus the energy to make the material
usable is another story...

[mossboss]

Yep Philips did do it Only 7" but They could never got it right on the album 12" and yes it was Polystyrene,
They also engraved negatively the details on the label area on the lacquer so you got a raised 3D kind of lettering for title band etc the usual details
They did not wear well but they where Cheap and sold on price alone
There was for years a stack of these beasts in France gathering dust or rust
No idea what ever happened to them
Most likely turned into Peugeot or Renaults may be Toyota or Nissan
Best

[mossboss]

In so far as the injection moulded records as currently produced at sonopress it is Impressive!
Great quality good results indeed,
The project had a number of notable people involved for a number of years whilst in development
Not a single one has gone ahead with it, at least one person I am aware of the initial group involved, bought Pheenix presses instead, that's as far as established hands in the game, my understanding is that the capital cost is quite high therefore not viable for them at least
I am not sure of what one needs to invest, however looking at the setup it looks like a multi million investment,
Besides the cost of those moulds would be in the 10's of K's rather than under the 10K mark for current moulds
Injection Moulding machines are hungry!!!!
They need to push a lot of product out to make them viable so that's another dilemma that one needs to be aware off, and taken into account
In a previous life, Ha, some years ago I was involved in the game of injection moulding after the demise of Vinyl Records,
Pushing out 1 L ice cream containers in LD-PE at 20-25 shots a minute was normal,
The cafe cup holders in PS was normal at 30 per minute in a double cavity mould, that's more than 50 years ago!!!, and on the best machines at the time Swiss made Netstall toggle lock pre-pack (Plunger and screw combo) injection moulding presses
No doubt this fantastic machine can do around a 8-10 second cycle if not more, what slows it down is the robotic arms, and the sensitive nature of the end product a Vinyl/Pet whatever record
So is quite simple really
Get enough work to feed it 24-5 and you make money!!
Wait for orders as we know them You better have Deeeeeep pockets,
When it is all said and done I sincerely hope that they do make it through as it is a great pleasure to see innovation and that's WHAT this is,
Their fall back position would be that this machine is a standard Injection Moulding press that can be utilised for other work
It would only require a mould change and it can make all sorts of products, It may be even be used as such now,
It only takes a competent Die Setter, about 30-45 Minutes to change a set of moulds with no more than a simple overhead hoist and some general tools,
If they have Auto tool change setup it gets down to minutes, the longest time would be taken up with cooling water hoses been hooked up,
I have no idea just guessing on this point, and yes, I have been keeping up with the Injection Moulding field so, No I am not talking out of school. Ha
Best