CDS

=CDs=

Questions:
What are CDs made of??? Plastic and aluminum-> origin of these components???

What are the environmental impacts of the production of CDs??

Where are they produced?

Cost of production??? Compared to price of retail??

How many Cds are produced in a year?

How does the digital downloading of music affect the production of CDs??

How much do people working in CD factories make -> who are the people doing the work?

Energy used to produce?

Can CDs be reused or recycled??

Research:
Made of: Polycarbonate plastic aluminum -> bauxite ore acrylic printed label

bauxite ore-> Largest producer is Australia, other producers are China and Brazil

Recycled aluminum requrires only 5% of the energy required to make new metal

Cds are made of difficult to recycle materials, can contaminate other recycling and cause human health problems

Digital sales compose 30% of U.S.music sales and 15% worldwide

1 million CD's (no packaging, just the disc) equals about 17 tons of solid waste.

Facts: bears eat beets...... bears, beets, battlestar galactica..... bears eat porches

but fer rulz:

when cds first became widely used in the united states around 1983, over 800,000 dics were sold. 7 years later, by 1990, that number had grown to over one billion.....

cd's are made from extremely stable and durable materials, so given that they are properly taken car of, cd's have the potential to last for decades, even centuries. however, most cds are disposed of long before their actual usable life is over...

Millions of music CD's are thrown away each year, and more than 5 and a half million boxes of software are disposed of on a yearly basis.

approximately 100,000 cd's become obsolete, or otherwise unused every month

Info from Vic:

Where do you get the raw material?? Polycarbonate from 3 or 4 suppliers including Bayer, GE plastics, Bow

What is the cost of production? Including machine cost, glue, plastic, laquer, inks, 12 cents per CD and about 14 cents per DVD.

Positions in factory: Customer service, molding/testing, printing, packaging, supervisors, purchasing.

How does downloading music affect CD manufacturers? It affects greatly; downloads --> companies going out of business. about 30% workers dropped because of downloading music.

Websites:
http://cdrecyclingcenter.org/information/about_recycling http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/editorials/mitchell.html http://earth2tech.com/2007/08/16/how-the-physical-distribution-of-digital-goods-impacts-the-environment/