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Green DJing

So I've finally just got around to going through all of spindles of CD-Rs from the last 4-5 years which I used to have in my "current" wallet and have since been relegated, each with 1 or 2 tunes per disc. Having already burnt off archive CDs with 9 or 10 tracks per disc of the best of this older stuff to keep in my wallet, the decision was basically to get rid of anything I still had backed up on my computer.

This resulted in a pile of 500-600 CDs for me to chuck out. Naturally, being the good citizen I am, I decided to see if these could be recycled - not surprisingly, your kerbside collection won't accept them, but I found a place in London (The Laundry) who will.

This got me thinking... at this rate it's likely I'm going to find myself recycling another 100 CDs every year and while it's much better than landfill, I'm sure they can't make use of 100% of each disc. So what can we do to avoid this amount of waste as a by-product of buying all these banging tunes, or should I just not give a fuck? Quite topical with Gordon "I'll Finish It If You're Not Going To" Brown going on about food waste this week!

Obvious option: burn more tunes to a CD, but I write loads of extra stuff on the CD (tempo, key, label, release date) so it'd become really cluttered and would take so long to do paper inserts for every CD, plus the reason I do 1-2 tracks per CD is so it's easy to read in the dark and find what you're after (I like having tracks "jumping out at me" as I flick through my wallet between tunes)

Other obvious option: switch to laptop DJing... not gonna happen any time soon.

I could also cut it down by trying not to buy shit in the first place... only about 50 tunes out of about 100 end up on the archive CDs each year, but a lot of that's based on how well the tune went down etc, which you often don't know until you've played it out a few times.

The other thing I thought about was using CD-RWs, but as someone who used the early CD decks back in the 90s I've learnt not to trust a CD deck with a rewritable - maybe the more recent Pioneers are a bit more reliable with them now? Plus they're quite a bit more expensive than CD-Rs.



Discuss... Am I the only one who's thought about this? Am I just turning into a massive hippie?

I've thought about the same thing, and seeing as how I bedroom DJ only, I'm looking hard at a laptop + Xponent (or the Vestax equivalent). I don't want to keep investing in vinyls and new carts/styli, and since a PC/laptop is something we use extensively anyway, some sort of digital solution will be the way I go.

The first ting that came to my mind would be to switch to a system like Serato, but you said that isn't an option for you.

What you might want to do is burn more tracks to a cd and then in your cd wallet have a piece of paper for each disc with information on it that would go in front or behind the CD. Would give you enough space to have all the information down. Then again, you are going to be using paper, but at least that is a lot easier to recycle.

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Originally posted by Polt The first ting that came to my mind would be to switch to a system like Serato, but you said that isn't an option for you. What you might want to do is burn more tracks to a cd and then in your cd wallet have a piece of paper for each disc with information on it that would go in front or behind the CD. Would give you enough space to have all the information down. Then again, you are going to be using paper, but at least that is a lot easier to recycle.

Well the only reason I don't want to switch to a laptop system is because firstly I'd rather not lug a laptop around to gigs (although having said that I have been known to take an extra CDJ and an EFX to my gigs which are much bigger!), but I'm very much into using hardware to control it all... obviously Serato would mean I could still use hardware but I think I'm right in saying that you can only use 2 decks with Serato?

I have been tempted to switch to Ableton, but if I do that I'll want to get a pretty serious controller cos the last thing I want to do is start pissing around with a mouse during my set.

A lot of clubs here just aren't really equipped for laptop sets though - a lot of the time you can't get to the back of the mixer very easily to plug things in and a lot have got really small booths, so there isn't much room for a laptop and a decent sized controller.

There's nothing green about clubbing. Do you want to turn the volume down to save electricity? Those lights will have to go too. Isn't clubbing about excess?

I appreciate your effort to be green, but do it in other places, a couple of CDs here and there is no big deal. Walk to your gigs, turn off the air conditioning, plant some trees, you get the idea.

if you dont mind the clutter you should keep with a vinyl style burn. Trial and error has brought me to filling up a cdr with wavs

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Originally posted by Stu Cox Well the only reason I don't want to switch to a laptop system is because firstly I'd rather not lug a laptop around to gigs (although having said that I have been known to take an extra CDJ and an EFX to my gigs which are much bigger!)

A laptop in a bag can't be much worse than carrying one of those huge CD wallets. It is definitely easier than bringing a cdj and efx.

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Originally posted by Stu Cox but I'm very much into using hardware to control it all... obviously Serato would mean I could still use hardware but I think I'm right in saying that you can only use 2 decks with Serato?

With Serato you are pretty much playing with the same CDJs/TTs plus a few extra features. Granted, it will cost you upfront.

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Originally posted by Stu Cox I have been tempted to switch to Ableton, but if I do that I'll want to get a pretty serious controller cos the last thing I want to do is start pissing around with a mouse during my set.

If you switch to Ableton you'd have to carry a laptop, controller, and a soundcard.

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Originally posted by epdarks There's nothing green about clubbing. Do you want to turn the volume down to save electricity? Those lights will have to go too. Isn't clubbing about excess? I appreciate your effort to be green, but do it in other places, a couple of CDs here and there is no big deal. Walk to your gigs, turn off the air conditioning, plant some trees, you get the idea.

Well indeed, on another messageboard someone said it's nothing compared with the amount of carbon a club produces while you're playing the CDs, but still, every little helps.

I'd hate to throw that much plastic away in one go, hence me finding a place who can recycle it, so it just got me thinking if I could reduce the number of CDs I get through...

I don't think I'm really looking to change format solely because of this - using what's right for the way I want to play is much more important to me haha, it surprised me just how many CD-Rs I get through and just wondered if other poeple had thought about it at all

Traktor Scratch or SSL.

Once I'm making money, I'm going that route - and I've often thought about exactly this issue before, Stu. To this point I have just filled CD's with tunes and burned two copies, but still - with as much new music as I go through and as quickly as records come and go, it's still a massive waste.

And in my eyes, the whole "dude - that's such a small part of the waste of clubbing" argument is ridiculous - it's a lot of small things that make change, not any one act on it's own.

The problem with recycling them is the energy. Firstly an amount of energy went in to producing them (from making the plastic, the packaging to encoding/burning). Then if you recycle them more energy is used to break them down and reconstruct them in to something useful again. The materials is one thing but the bigger concern is the energy used for the whole process.

Take for example the new craze with hydrogen cars. It's a total fallacy that it will benefit the environment anytime soon. I know someone who just got one of the (3 in existance) BWM 7 series hydrogen cars. The guys at BMW were spouting how marvelous the zero emissions were etc. I asked them how efficient the manufacturing process is. They all glance at each other then....Silence. Just to make the fuel tank safe enough to carry hydrogen, it takes 2 whole weeks of intensive production and masses of energy and materials.

In fact if you take the benefit of zero emissions from a hydrogen car and weigh it against the negative environmental costs of the energy and materials taken to create just that fuel tank (let alone the rest of the car) you would have to use that car every day for about 35 years to offset the two. And that doesn't even take in to consideration the logistics of transporting hydrogen to the pumps and the equipment needed for it.


My point is that it is better to use the CD's that you have for another purpose as the energy and materials have already been used and until technology enables the recycling process to be more efficient with CD's (like how it works so efficiently with PET products such as bottles). Give them to someone who is about to start DJ'ing or has no tracks or a Dj school, make some dogdy art, coasters, etc.

I personally wouldn't use CDRW's - my experience is that they can't be trusted and they can only really be burnt a couple of times before they have real problems.

I hate the whole laptop in clubs thing - I don't care what anyone says, it detracts from the performance experience as a result of the "DJ" mixing or even cuing with a computer. Every time a DJ really gets in to it and has that solely tactile relationship with the decks/cdjs/mixer, the performance quality and hence the musical quality to some extent greatly benefits. I have never been (as) impressed by any of the couple hundred laptop performances I have seen when compared to them working it on decks/mixer.

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Originally posted by epdarks Isn't clubbing about excess?

Not last time I went. It was about the music and the people.

If you think it's about excess you've got the wrong end of the [glow]stick.....!

Oh what the fuck ever man. Look at the business side of it. You think clubs would be around without fancy lights, big sound systems and gobs of alcohol?

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Originally posted by epdarks There's nothing green about clubbing. Do you want to turn the volume down to save electricity? Those lights will have to go too. Isn't clubbing about excess? I appreciate your effort to be green, but do it in other places, a couple of CDs here and there is no big deal. Walk to your gigs, turn off the air conditioning, plant some trees, you get the idea.

Being "Green" doesn't mean to stop doing what you do. Everyone knows that lot's of power and waste comes out of a club.

Being "Green" is about making the day to day activities more environmentally friendly. Sure, turning down the volume isn't an answer. But if everyone just did what the original poster is doing, then it's doing it's share to help reduce the impact on our environment.

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Originally posted by Schwab Being "Green" doesn't mean to stop doing what you do. Everyone knows that lot's of power and waste comes out of a club. Being "Green" is about making the day to day activities more environmentally friendly. Sure, turning down the volume isn't an answer. But if everyone just did what the original poster is doing, then it's doing it's share to help reduce the impact on our environment.

It won't have an ounce of impact on the environment. By the time you factor energy used in finding a place, energy used in driving to the place to recycle, the energy they invest into actually doing something with it, and the energy used in getting to become whatever the hell it is going to become it's likely a wash... and if not, I am willing to bet something pretty valuable that it certainly isn't going to be the thing that saves the environment if it needs saving.

I agree that clubbing and such is about excess - as are most things I do. Do I really need a Mac Pro with two midi controllers, an electric guitar, a synth, a couple fans to keep it cool, and 4 lights in the studio running right now while I browse TA? Nada.

The concept is noble. If that's what you choose to do, more power to you - seriously. Me, on the other hand, after reading this post I'll throw away a few less batteries and we'll call it even. And for God's sakes... clean your plates before you leave the table! That'll do it!

quote:

Originally posted by RJT Traktor Scratch or SSL.

im going ssl before the summer is over for this same reason

Traktor Scratch has 4 Decks so if you're interested in more than 2 that might be a better option.

It's not just about the energy - as someone already mentioned, it's quite likely that it takes more energy to recylce a CD than to make one fresh, but it's also nice to think you're not sticking quite as much crap in the ground... although that said, we've still got a fair amount of the crust of this planet to fill up with rubbish and then a few quintillion cubic metres of mantle after that.

The energy finding the place wasn't much (just took about 5 mins on the net) and there's a guy who lives pretty much next door who happens to work within a mile of the place so he's said he'll take it up there for me.

Yeah it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but then so are the number of beer cans one person gets through in a year - but the majority of us still try and recycle them.

GODDAMN HIPPY!

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Originally posted by Stu Cox It's not just about the energy - as someone already mentioned, it's quite likely that it takes more energy to recylce a CD than to make one fresh, but it's also nice to think you're not sticking quite as much crap in the ground... although that said, we've still got a fair amount of the crust of this planet to fill up with rubbish and then a few quintillion cubic metres of mantle after that.

Recycling plastics and (some) glass is an exceptionally efficient process.

If we were talking about recycling cans/metal products, then yes - it's probably more wasteful/harmful to recycle them, but anyone making the claim that recycling plastics is inefficient really doesn't know what they're talking about.

/Environmental Ethics degree in action. I knew it would come in handy some day.

http://www.cdrecyclingcenter.com/

Apparently you can ship them your old CDs and they'll recycle them properly.

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Originally posted by Ray_Chappell It won't have an ounce of impact on the environment. By the time you factor energy used in finding a place, energy used in driving to the place to recycle, the energy they invest into actually doing something with it, and the energy used in getting to become whatever the hell it is going to become it's likely a wash... and if not, I am willing to bet something pretty valuable that it certainly isn't going to be the thing that saves the environment if it needs saving. I agree that clubbing and such is about excess - as are most things I do. Do I really need a Mac Pro with two midi controllers, an electric guitar, a synth, a couple fans to keep it cool, and 4 lights in the studio running right now while I browse TA? Nada. The concept is noble. If that's what you choose to do, more power to you - seriously. Me, on the other hand, after reading this post I'll throw away a few less batteries and we'll call it even. And for God's sakes... clean your plates before you leave the table! That'll do it!

You completely missed the point.

You guys recycle? Mas puto!

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Originally posted by RJT Recycling plastics and (some) glass is an exceptionally efficient process. If we were talking about recycling cans/metal products, then yes - it's probably more wasteful/harmful to recycle them, but anyone making the claim that recycling plastics is inefficient really doesn't know what they're talking about. /Environmental Ethics degree in action. I knew it would come in handy some day.

From what I read, it sounded like it depended on the plastic... with CDs they actually extract plastic and aluminium from it, which can't be too easy...?

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Originally posted by Stu Cox From what I read, it sounded like it depended on the plastic... with CDs they actually extract plastic and aluminium from it, which can't be too easy...?

They don't have to smelt them the same way they do with glass and metals, though.

Recycling any plastic will almost always take substantially less than recycling metal or glass, and it will absolutely take less net energy and resources than throwing them away and purchasing new discs.

It isn't just about energy conservation, there's also something to be said for tangible resource conservation.

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