I need to come clean about something that’s been bothering me for months now. Here I am, a 68-year-old woman who lectures people about unnecessary packaging and drives everyone crazy separating the recycling down to the tiniest details, and I’ve got this massive blind spot when it comes to music. My living room tells the whole embarrassing story – there are vinyl records from the 1970s stacked three deep on my shelves, boxes of CDs I haven’t touched in years but can’t seem to throw away, and yes, even a shoebox full of cassette tapes from when my kids were teenagers, even though I don’t own anything that plays them anymore.
And that’s just the physical stuff. I stream music constantly on my phone, on the computer, through that little speaker my daughter bought me for Christmas. I’ll put on the same playlist while I’m cooking dinner, cleaning house, working in the garden. Never really thought about what all that streaming was doing to the environment, you know?
The wake-up call came last spring when I was doing my annual decluttering – something I’ve gotten more serious about since my husband passed. I was wiping dust off album covers, organizing them by… well, some system that made sense to me at the time, when my granddaughter Emma stopped by. She’s sixteen now, very environmentally conscious like a lot of kids her age. She looked at all this music stuff spread across my dining room table and asked, “Grandma, have you ever looked into how bad all this is for the environment?”
Honestly, I hadn’t. Which is weird because I research everything else to death. I can tell you the carbon footprint of different types of dish soap, but music? Music got a free pass somehow, like it existed in this special category of things I didn’t apply my usual environmental scrutiny to.
So I did what I always do when someone points out something I should know but don’t – I went down the research rabbit hole. Spent weeks reading studies, calling record stores with probably annoying questions, trying to understand the environmental impact of all these different ways we consume music. The record store owner downtown must think I’m losing it, asking him about PVC content and manufacturing processes.
What I found out was… well, it’s complicated. Isn’t it always?
Let’s start with vinyl, because that’s where most of my guilt was concentrated. Those beautiful records sitting on my shelves are basically little discs of fossil fuel. Regular vinyl records are made from polyvinyl chloride – PVC – which is one of the worst plastics environmentally speaking. Each album uses about five ounces of the stuff, and making it involves all sorts of toxic chemicals and uses significant energy.
When I first learned this, I felt terrible looking at my collection. My husband and I had been buying records since the early 1970s, and I’d kept adding to the collection even after CDs came out, then kept going when streaming started. All those albums suddenly seemed like environmental crimes sitting there on my shelves.
But then I noticed something interesting in my research. The environmental impact depends a lot on how long the record lasts and how often you play it. Some of the albums I own are fifty years old and still play perfectly. My copy of “Tapestry” by Carole King that I bought in 1972 – I’ve probably played that thing two hundred times over the years, and it still sounds great. When you spread the environmental cost of making that record over fifty years and hundreds of plays, it starts to look different than if you buy a record, play it twice, and stick it on a shelf forever.
That got me thinking about durability in a way I hadn’t before. These old records, if you take care of them properly, can last decades. You can pass them down to your kids, sell them to other people, keep them out of landfills for generations. Compare that to how I was streaming – playing the same songs over and over, each time using server energy and internet bandwidth.
CDs are a bit different. They’re made from different types of plastic – polycarbonate instead of PVC – plus aluminum and various other materials. Lighter than records, less material overall, but also more fragile. I’ve got CDs from the 1990s that are scratched beyond repair, even though I tried to take care of them. You know that cloudy thing that happens to old CDs? Half my collection has that now. Unlike records, which you can often clean and restore, a badly damaged CD is basically garbage.
And don’t get me started on cassette tapes. I kept a box of them for sentimental reasons – mixtapes the kids made, recordings of my husband singing along to the radio in the car, that sort of thing. But they’re made from all different types of plastic and metal, they break easily, and they’re nearly impossible to recycle. Most of mine don’t even play anymore because the tape has degraded or gotten tangled up inside.
So there I was, feeling pretty bad about all this physical media, thinking streaming must be the environmentally friendly option. No plastic, no shipping, no manufacturing – just music delivered through the internet. Clean and green, right?
Wrong. Of course it’s not that simple.
Streaming music requires enormous data centers running constantly, plus all the infrastructure to get that data to your device, plus the electricity to power everything from the servers to your phone or computer. Every time I stream a song, I’m using energy somewhere. And I stream a lot – probably several hours a day between background music while I’m doing things around the house and the times I sit down to really listen.
The numbers were eye-opening when I finally found studies that looked at this. Depending on the quality of the stream, an hour of music can generate anywhere from about an ounce to over half a pound of carbon dioxide. The variation depends on things like how high the audio quality is, how efficient the data centers are, and what kind of electricity is powering everything.
But here’s where it gets really interesting – and this took me a while to wrap my head around. Whether streaming or owning physical media is worse for the environment depends entirely on how many times you listen to the same music.
If you buy a record and play it a hundred times over the years, the environmental cost per listen can actually be lower than streaming that same music a hundred times. But if you’re someone who listens to something once or twice and then moves on to other music, streaming generates less environmental impact overall.
I had to really think about my own listening habits. I’m definitely a repeat listener. I’ve got maybe twenty albums that I play regularly – the same Carole King record, some Beatles, Joan Baez, James Taylor, music that I never get tired of. But I also stream a lot of stuff just to see if I like it, or for background music when I’m not really paying attention.
After weeks of trying to calculate the environmental impact of my specific music habits – and yes, I made spreadsheets, because that’s how I handle confusing information – I decided I needed some practical rules for myself. Not perfect solutions, because those don’t exist, but better choices.
First, I’m being much more intentional about buying physical music. No more impulse purchases just because I see something interesting at the record store. If I’m going to buy vinyl, it should be for music I know I’ll play many times over many years, or albums that are special enough to justify the environmental cost. The ritual of playing a record – cleaning it, carefully putting it on the turntable, sitting down to really listen – that should mean something.
Second, I’ve started looking for more environmentally conscious options when I do buy physical media. Some companies are making records from recycled vinyl now, or even plant-based materials instead of petroleum-based plastics. They cost more, but buying fewer, better records seems like the right approach. I’ve also gotten back into shopping for used records, which extends the life of existing albums without creating demand for new production.
Third, I’m trying to be smarter about streaming. Simple things like downloading playlists so I’m not streaming the same songs repeatedly, reducing the audio quality when I just want background music, using my wifi instead of mobile data when possible. None of these changes affect my enjoyment of the music, but they reduce the energy consumption.
I’m also trying to support musicians and record labels that are paying attention to these issues. There are independent labels now offering carbon-neutral releases, investing in environmental projects to offset their impact. Some artists are making real efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of their tours and merchandise. Supporting these initiatives with my purchasing choices encourages more widespread adoption.
But maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that perfect environmental purity isn’t possible, and trying to achieve it would mean giving up music entirely, which would make life pretty sad. The goal isn’t zero impact – the goal is being more thoughtful, making better choices when possible, and gradually reducing my footprint over time.
This whole process has changed how I think about my relationship with music. We’ve gone from a world where recorded music was relatively rare and precious to one where it’s essentially infinite and instantly available. That shift affects not just resource consumption, but how we value music itself.
I’m not getting rid of my record collection, and I’m not canceling my streaming subscriptions. But I am bringing the same kind of thoughtfulness to music that I try to bring to other parts of my life. And honestly, that thoughtfulness might actually make the music more enjoyable. When I carefully choose a record to buy instead of buying impulsively, when I really listen to an album instead of having it as disposable background noise, I’m creating a deeper connection with the music.
Last week I had my neighbor over for dinner and pulled out an old Nina Simone album I’d found at a yard sale. We listened to the whole thing straight through while we ate, no skipping tracks, no distractions, just paying attention to those incredible songs. It felt meaningful in a way that’s hard to describe – like we were really honoring the music instead of just consuming it.
Maybe the answer isn’t choosing between vinyl and streaming as the “right” environmental choice. Maybe it’s about being more conscious with both – treating streaming with the same respect I give to physical media, and making sure any physical purchases really justify their environmental cost through repeated, meaningful listening.
Music matters too much to be treated carelessly, whether we’re accessing it digitally or physically. Finding a balance that honors both the art and the planet seems like something worth working toward, even if I don’t get it perfectly right every time.
