Having the grand clear out , ready for the great downsizing.
Amazed the waste that past media such as cassettes and VHS produces
So sad that whilst I was able to recycle the outer plastic the contents seemed destined for the landfill.
I had never fully appreciated what a wasteful process obsolescence was , and how streaming is environmentally friendly
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I suppose a ‘whole system’ approach might point to the energy usage of servers and data stores etc. These things are never quite as simple as they may appear.
The brittle plastic of CDs and cassettes (especially if black) is hard to recycle I believe
Bruce
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That’s what I was thinking as I threw away twenty VHS 
and a similar number of cassettes for my Talking Books
Servers, and the infrastructure that gets the data to and from them over many thousands of miles, does indeed use a lot of energy, so I don’t think the argument for it replacing physical media stacks up. If you rip or download to a local server on your own network where the data only travels a short distance it’s a different matter.
Not so much hard, as a dearth of good routes to do so, though it will depend on the plastic exactly what the construction is: Certainly CD cases (polystyrene) dead easy if a waste collector/repositry segregates and sends appropriately. (See CD collection has to go - #19 by Innocent_Bystander). Where I am (NE England) there is a recycle bin emptied fortnightly, accepting all plastics - but not separated, not even from cardboard, glass bottles and metal that go in the same bin, only paper separated. I don’t know if there is a processing station where it is sorted, but if so it would inevitably have to include substantial manual processing as not all would be readily sorted mechanically. (Note to self: something I should look into.) i would put such things through that, but checking with them if, say, CD discs or VHS tapes are acceptable.
It is much more complex than simple energy use. Plastics in physical media pump poisonous substances into the atmosphere. They also are non recyclable. They do only use energy in their production though ( we can ignore the energy on replaying for the moment).
Streaming uses vast amounts of energy but little poisonous content pumped into the atmosphere.
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Other than the CO2 used to produce the energy in coal and gas fired power stations, which is a major cause of global warming.
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Of course, but at the moment the estimate for percentage of co2 required to power all streaming platforms globally is 0.1 percent of total c02 emissions.
There are also energy from waste plants: burning plastic releases energy, which can be converted to electricity. Most of the potential pollutants can be prevented by suitable burn temperature though also requires proper control, and resources to do tgat. That said, I’m not sure of their actual effectiveness - one that I had some involvement in assessing pollutants didn’t seem actually to produce much electricity. (Heat for distribution to nearby homes or businesses might be a better use of the energy). And CO2 inevitably is produced, so the balance between landfill and incineration is a difficult one to determine. Recycling is of course infinitely better, but I suspect economics limits development of suitable plant. Sorting can be labour intensive - but if that creates jobs its cost may be better than unemployment , but that strays into politics so not a subject for here.
Books too.
We are conditioned to respect the printed media, and I find it difficult to consign one expensive textbooks to the paper recycle. In the basement we have the remains of a relative’s vast library with novels nobody is ever going to want to read. Why do we keep out of date Encyclopedias?
One day I hope to pluck up courage to send it all to recycle.
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We do very little streaming and nearly all listening is from the NAS. We have over 4,000 albums, half from ripped CDs and the other half from downloads. When I got shot of my CDs I ensued some, sold a load to Music Magpie and gave a load to the local hospice shop. Nowadays the hospice shop won’t take them. So much for ‘perfect sound forever’. I do worry about the environmental downsides of streaming and the massive server farms that power it, but I’m not going to take any moral high ground here as much of our TV watching is streamed on iPlayer.
I really sympathise with how Ian feels about putting cassettes and the like in the bin. It just feels wrong, but if we didn’t do it we’d just end up knee deep in clutter.
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Yes, there were some very enjoyable tapes, Michael Hordon reading M R James and Kenneth Williams - Rambling Syd Rumpo - it hurt . They were bought in the days I took a Sony Walkman with me on holiday .
My new flat is about 60% of the size of my home.
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Fairly sure the shop not taking them is unrelated to the organisation’s estimation of the SQ of the CD format.
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Our local tip does collect hard plastics, so recently on about 10 VHS tape:
Very outer soft plastic cover ripped off and put with soft plastics at supermarket
VHS Case had markings that allowed it to go to weekly plastic recycle
The cassette was taken apart and black hard plastic went to the local tip.
I even unspooled the tape which created a big pile on the kitchen floor, and was fun at first, but once started, I couldn’t just stop. Tape went into the bin, and the plastic spool went to tip with hard plastics.
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Wowzer, I thought I was doing well by taking the plastic case and inner sleeve notes to recycling