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Dave Newell, a Florida-based musician and avid record collector, has, alongside environmentalist wife Betsy Bemis, created the first solar-powered vinyl record press in the US. They call it ‘Audiodrome’.
The first sustainable vinyl record press has opened in the US for Earth Day, and it has nowt to do with Billie Eilish, Chris Martin, or any other outspoken eco-conscious artist.
Dave Newell, a humble musician and record collector hailing from Gainesville, Florida, and his wife Betsy Bemis decided to fulfil their long-held ambition of printing records with little-to-no carbon footprint this month.
The pair hope their new solar powered presser, Audiodrome, will make the industry’s golden standard of physical media a little greener, and that artists and manufacturers can begin to reverse vinyl’s ecologically negative rep in the States.
Whether we’re talking about your folks’ Pink Floyd collection from the 1970s, or your Taylor Swift record off the shelf at Target last week, chances are both have required the use of fossil fuels, carbon black colouring, and copious amounts of ink and cardboard to come to life.
In-fact, since the very inception of vinyl, production methods have remained essentially unchanged.
The majority of factories still use inefficient steam powered machines and produce toxic wastewater, the records themselves are mostly made from PVC (polyvinyl chloride) – which contains carcinogenic chemicals – and some still use lead as a stabiliser during pressing.
Overall, the traditional production process is said to generate roughly 2.2kg of GHG emissions per record. That doesn’t take into account the packaging or shipping needed to get the vinyl under the customer’s needle for the first time either.
Having fully delved into this rabbit hole of vinyl’s environmental impact, both Newell and Bemis decided that seeing their record printing vision come to life would depend on one major condition: that their business was as ‘thoughtful and mindful’ as possible.
With that in mind, the couple aimed for maximum sustainability across all facets of the operation.
