Optimal Media "Goes Green"—Now Offers "Carbon Neutral" Pressing Option

Optimal Media recently announced a new "ecco-friendly" vinyl pressing package along with other environmentally friendly options for vinyl clientele wishing to minimize or eliminate their contribution to carbon-based pollution.

The eco-friendly package includes records pressed from 100% recycled vinyl (not used records, but using "flash"—the vinyl trimmed following pressing), packaged in FSC-certified, 100% recycled board and packaging. There's an option to fully compensate for carbon emissions and make the entire package carbon neutral.

The Röbel, Germany-based company claims it took more than a year and half's research to calculate what it would take to achieve this, including data connected to raw materials manufacturing, transportation of finished goods and a whole range of considerations most of us probably wouldn't think of considering.

Optimal says sound quality is comparable to "virgin" colored vinyl with each record being unique because of the way the "flash" is recovered and re-used. Black records are also offered using "flash" from black records. Optimal claims "climate-neutral production and shipping with ClimatePartner, offset printing with plant oil-based inks, FSC-Certified paper and cardboard from sustainably managed forests and other forward looking production features.

According to an Optimal spokesperson, it's the first and only pressing plant in the world capable of achieving these worthy goals. If you are going to "go green", you might as well consider "pressing green"!

Optimal Media

COMMENTS
MalachiLui's picture

good one

Anton D's picture

They are fully compostable and the jacket is impregnated with wildflower seeds.

Tom L's picture

...where they got that extra "c".
Hope it was a carbon-neutral source!

MalachiLui's picture

yr0096cd type vibe

robert r dawson's picture

There's an option to fully compensate for carbon emissions and make the entire package carbon neutral.

why not just do it?

OldschoolE's picture

It seems to me we are not talking about melted down Bic pens, but flash from a pressed record, which is already formulated. We know when vinyl is to be made into records things are added to make a certain formulation for records.
ha ha, the minute I saw the article I thought "this has to be Germany". I could have been wrong, but wasn't in this case.
Leave it to the Germans to figure this out, we certainly can't. If you can do it without crazy loss of quality, why not?

dconsmack's picture

Remember … the planet will be uninhabitable in less than a decade. Seems like a lot of wasted effort since we’re all doomed.

Michael Fremer's picture
You may be being ironic but I think you are correct. It's already uninhabitable in large parts of the west and the south and the midwest.
dconsmack's picture

I know! Those people in that part of the country are the WORST.

Tom L's picture
dconsmack's picture

Ha!

Joost's picture

This is just what we need in the vinyl community and hopefully the start of many more.

Tom L's picture

"I wouldn't live there if you paid me" about my home city, but I love it here. Lots of used record stores.

Modus Vivendi Media's picture

Deepgrooves in the Netherlands has been doing this for several years. They were founded in 2017 specifically to be an entirely eco-friendly record manufacturer.

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