Are CDs Destroying Our Planet?

With Earth Day coming next Sunday, a host of rock stars can boast about an impressive track record of promoting environmental causes.

Sting is saving the Brazilian rain forests. Don Henley, the B-52s and the Go-Go’s have performed environmental benefits. Paul McCartney has made sizable donations to Friends of the Earth. Barbra Streisand offers environmental dos and don’ts on her album sleeves. Bette Midler and Olivia Newton-John are teaming up for a September Hollywood Bowl concert supporting an anti-pesticide proposition on the November ballot.

But while individual pop celebs have done their part, the record industry has earned an environmental black-eye for creating a mountain of trash with its unwieldy 6”X12” cardboard CD boxes, covered with plastic wrap.

“We have so many artists speaking out about crucial environmental issues, but we’re selling their CDs in a box that’s nothing but garbage,” said Island Records president Mike Bone. “You tear it in half, take out the CD and throw it away. It’s a total waste. What’s worse is the U.S. is the only country in the world that still uses these packages.”

Rhino Records A&R; chief Gary Stewart agrees. “These CD packages are dinosaurs. If you laid the disposable packaging from the 250 million CDs that will be sold in America this year end to end, you’d circle the equator twice.”

While most major record label execs remain mum on the issue, these mavericks have escalated the battle. Spurred by RykoDisc chief exec Rob Simmons, a cadre of small labels and committed artists have purchased a full-page “Ban the Box” ad in the new issue of Rolling Stone (Signees or financial supporters include R.E.M., the Grateful Dead and Olivia Newton-John as well as I.R.S., Rounder, Rhino, Fantasy and Rykodisc Records).

So why has the record industry, which has taken the lead on so many other social issues, been dragging its feet on CD packaging?

“There’s a certain logic to the long box since it fits perfectly into the album slots in record store bins,” Bone said. “So now retailers are saying--and rightfully so--why should I go through the expensive process of completely refixturing my stores unless I’m going to get something in return.”

But at least one key retail mogul loudly insists CD long boxes are here to stay.

“If record company people are telling you they’re getting rid of CD boxes, then they’re smoking an illegal substance which used to be very popular in the industry,” said Russ Solomon, the outspoken owner of the influential 55-store nationwide Tower Records chain. “It’s just not going to happen. We’re adamantly opposed to it.

“It’s a financial issue, not an environmental issue. There’s less paper used in CD packages than one Sunday issue of the L.A. Times. If you opened a box of Tide or a box of cornflakes, you’d throw away just as much cardboard as you do in CD boxes.”

Solomon contends that without the 6x12 display, which serves as a key merchandising weapon, CD sales would drop, noting that audio cassettes (which are sold without display packaging) have flattened out “dramatically” in terms of sales growth.

He also insists that without the bulky packaging, stores would be faced with an enormous security problem, due to increased shoplifting. CDs might have to be placed in locked glass display boxes, like cassettes often are, in order to avoid “a huge theft problem.”

Some industry execs say a possible solution is to have manufacturers insert a security strip inside the CD cover which could be deactivated at the cash register when the CD was purchased. And since record companies would save about 25 cents per CD in packaging costs, it would be possible to split the profits with retailers as a trade-off for the cost they would incur by refixturing the stores.

However, Solomon doesn’t buy it. “Don’t think the record companies will help us bear the burden of converting our space,” he said. “It’ll never happen.”

So far, of the major record labels, only Warners and Elektra rely entirely on recycled paper (though most have agreed to run pro-environment messages on the CD boxes). But as Gary Stewart acknowledges: “All too often the labels use recycling as a smoke screen--it’s a commendable step, but not a real solution.”

The real solution is probably public pressure from environmentalists and activist pop stars. “If CBS or the Warner labels agreed to make the first move,” said Island’s Mike Bone. “You’d see the CD boxes disappear very quickly.”