Recycle Plastic Bags and CD/DVD Shrink Wrap?

[meansizzler]

God knows how much cd/dvd shrkink wrap gets binned every year, they really should think of a more environmetally friendly way of wrapping cd/dvd's, anyway is it possible to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way?

Also have some plastic bags simlar to those they use for air cussions ?, you can't realy re-use them as there to small, so what can you do with them?

The Local Website is pretty useless when it comes to recycling plastic, I mean do they want you to bin it, endless searching various websites comes up with nothing...

[Corey USA]

theft is the reason for the wrap in the first place. If you can eliminate the theft issue then you only need the case and due away with the wrap.

Cases coming open is not the reason, they have cases that have locking tabs to prevent accidental opening.

money is made by wrapping as well. they would loose money if they didn't wrap it minimally.

[Corey USA]

Even better have a central place where people can check media out for free thus eliminating thousands to millions of copies made which is a significant footprint. Local library is a prime example of us sharing one copy, only one person can have that copy at a time, thus not violating copy write.

Our library does this, they have upward of 7000 movies.

[CGizzi]

What is the footprint of 1000s of people all probably using their car to go to the library to pickup the single DVD though?

Lets say I pickup a DVD whilst in Asda doing my normal weekly shop, the only footprint is the actual DVD & packaging/transport as the trip would have been made anyway by myself.

If I went to the Library to pickup & then dropoff the DVD I would be makeing 2 extra trips/detours ( plus charge to myself for parking )

[Corey USA]

driving is already happening, when going to pick up the material when "buying" it. Also the same thing with netflix and such Netfix needs more copies due to the unlimited time in which you can hold a movie thus they need more copies to meet the demand. Just being shifted to a different location minus all the extra copies that are made from sharing. Also here we are allowed to pick up 10 and keep for 2 weeks (14days) libraries only have 1 or 2 copies thus forcing us to share and be patient. Some of the movies I reserve I have to wait 6 months to see but its worth the wait when factoring the total cost of this form of sharing vs others. And its free. No paying 6-7 dollars to see at a theater or 6 dollars to rent for only 5 days

Transportation is going to happen if you consume that type of material its a matter of reducing the number of copies being made which will impact the overall footprint.

Music is unlimited so long as the time it takes to listen to it in 14 days. by getting the max your saving many trips. Some material can be rechecked out via online if you want to keep it longer thus no driving to renew. This can be done so long as their is no reserve by another on it.

[Karl_R]

Most of the recent campaigns against plastics seem to be focussed on grocery bags – but this issue of the packaging material for CV/DVD is a bit more problematic. While (for the average consumer at least) less plastic waste quantity is generated from the wrapping of these items than from shopping bags, at least there is the option to reuse the plastic bags; it is difficult to think of any re-use for the plastic from wrapping CD’s…

Overall, the "plastics" environmental issue is really just another dimension of the cultural addiction to oil and gas. I have read previously, that the ready availability of plastics for making consumable / non-durable / disposable items such as grocery bags and packaging materials, is dependent upon the ubiquity of ethylene as an industrial by-product of petro-chemical refineries.

As such, one of the arguments often presented by skeptics to campaigns to ban plastic shopping bags, or to reduce the quantity used in packaging materials, is that this very ethylene will still end up in the environment (and not in a form that creates any value).

However, one implication of the increasing unavailability of (or competition for) hydrocarbons as time progresses, is that reliance on cheap ethylene for plastics production (as a de facto waste transfer mechanism) is in itself inherently unsustainable.

Therefore, this adds another dimension to the plastic materials sustainability debate – we should probably be looking for some substitute material for things like plastic bags (and bottles, packaging materials, etc.) for reasons other than their (direct) environmental impact.

However, it is instructive to note that the environmental "scourge" (as the anti-"plastic bags" campaigners describe it) will, like all other things related to fossil fuels, peak at some time. Unless a very cheap substitute source for plastic manufacture is found, it is only a matter of time before it is too valuable to be simply "given away". Source stocks for making plastics will always be available (e.g., from bio-polymers), but the fact remains that the allocation and distribution of this material will change in the short- or medium-term future.

A more detailed discussion on this topic: http://www.sustainabilityforum.com/f...stic-bags.html