Behind the nostalgia lies an uncomfortable truth: Every record is made of oil.
Up on Longreads today is an excerpt from Kyle Devine’s new book, Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change, published by @versobooks. As vinyl’s popularity has surged over the decades, so has scrutiny of its environmental cost, and the music industry’s efforts to address it. In this excerpt, Devine visits a record-pressing plant, taking a look at one business working to green the industry.
Billy is keenly aware of the problems of plastic pollution, and he knows what it means to make records from petroleum products. ‘People talk about vinyl and wax, and it sounds cool,’ he says, 'but there is no getting around that vinyl records are PVC and every one that I make adds to the plastic in the world.
Devine is the author of Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music and a professor in environmental studies and dean of graduate studies at the University of Winnipeg. Read our excerpt, “Vinyl in the Veins,” on Longreads.
