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January 31, 2007

itunes_store

iTunes Store: downloading music, saving the environment

Posted Jan. 31, ’07, 2:32 PM PT by Scott Silverman
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

GreenpeaceHere’s something Greenpeace never really thought about: Apple’s iTunes Store is reducing waste, reducing the manufacture of petroleum-based plastics, and reducing the effects transportation has on the environment.

Every time you purchase music from the iTunes Store, you are preventing the manufacture of a CD, which, according to a blog entry entitled the Apple iTunes Store Environmental Impact:

are mostly manufactured from Aluminum and Polycarbonate along with Lacquer, Dyes, and other materials such as water, glass, and nickel. Most of these materials must also be processed before manufacturers can use them to make CD’s. As an example, to make plastic, crude oil from the ground is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant.

Think of all those toxins you are eliminating! Additionally, by buying your music digitally, you are reducing the amount of waste (a CD, its jewel case, and packaging) that will someday end up in a landfill:

A CD along with a slim jewel case and 1-2 pages of liner weighs about 60 grams. That’s about .13224 lbs. If a standard tractor trailer can move 80,000 lbs of product (or about 605,000 CD’s) the Apple iTunes Store has saved about 275 tractor trailers worth of CD’s from being manufactured and shipped and is adding to that by about 5 tractor trailers worth per week.

And of course I must bring to your attention the gas and air-pollutants you save by using the iTunes Store. Not only does an online music purchase stop you from driving to Walmart to buy a CD, but the CD doesn’t need to be trucked around the globe from the manufacturing plant to reach Walmart in the first place. Of course I should mention that there’s all the power and maintenance equipment used to actually provide iTunes music, but I think it uses comparatively less energy and resources than a physical CD.

So next time you burn $9.99 on an album from the iTunes Store, at least your wallet can feel a little better knowing you’re helping the environment.


8 Comments

dalben said:

Someone should tell the record labels about this, too. Last time I checked Weird Al was begging people to buy the actual CD because the label was still charging him for packaging and shipping on each digital download. Makes a whole lot of no sense.

January 31, 2007 2:51 PM
nelsorp said:

i like this idea, but until apple offers a lossless form of music tracks, i will never purchase any tracks from itunes. why would i want to pay 10 dollars for an inferior copy of a cd? this just dilutes the quality of the music.

January 31, 2007 2:52 PM
TranceMist said:

Ok. Granted.

However, it misses the point about DRM. I should be able to download what I pay for in unprotected mp3, ogg, or whatever. No DRM.

January 31, 2007 7:32 PM
Moe said:

I'm with the rest when it comes to the low quality of the music available on iTMS. I generally don't find many artists I actually like on there anyway.

I like Magnatune.com. The artists are independent, they get HALF what you pay for the album, you choose what you want to pay (minimum $5) and you can download full fidelity WAV versions of the albums to encode however you like. Downside is you can't buy individual tracks.

Hope that doesn't sound like a shill. I honestly like this site better than iTMS.

February 1, 2007 5:53 AM
Salvatore Barbera said:

I don't get the point. Greenpeace is asking for a toxic free product. It's not linked at all with cds production. It's really interesting how internet can change our way to produce and buy, and it's great that we can now reduce our environmental impact when we want to listen some music.
But I would like my next mac to be without toxic stuff too.

As a really mac addict, I think we should consider Greenpeace campaign as a great opportunity for Apple to become the best Computer company in the world.

February 1, 2007 6:39 AM
jayh said:

nelsorp, are your ears really THAT powerfull that u can actually notice the difference between music from a CD and music from the iTunes store? if yes, i'd assume u don't own an iPod and never used portable devices to play music in your life? cause the ear phones kinda damage your hearing, and boy, even traffic noise does. so share with us how you were able to keep your hearing intact. cause i can't tell the difference between the two types of music :shrugs:

February 1, 2007 6:40 AM
Martin said:

Interesting remark, well no raking is perfect. But it is not only Apple selling the music online - Sony does too as far I know (although with less success). Plus - how would you then compare it against HP or Dell which do not sell music at all???

February 1, 2007 8:56 AM
nelsorp said:

there is a noticeable difference in the quality of mp3s and lossless filetypes. not everyone can hear the difference. im not saying my hearing is perfect by any means, ive seen more than enough live shows to certainly cause some hearing loss (i wear earplugs now, everyone should at concerts), but i can still tell the difference in the sound of the files. it is especially noticable in recordings of live music. shorten and flac files are the standard for distributing live music. whether you can hear it or not, why would you want to dilute the quality of a product? im not saying they cant offer mp3s, but offer a choice. i would pay more for lossless files, they require time to download, bandwidth, etc. there are several very successful models that operate using lossless files: livephish.com, nugs.net, muletracks, and many other bands offering their recordings in a lossless format. however, most of these providers also offer mp3s, as a cheaper option, for people who cant tell the difference, or for people who just dont care. to each his own...

February 1, 2007 2:41 PM

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