IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog - Post details: Longevity Vs Biodegradeability

Longevity Vs Biodegradeability

04/16/04

Sony has released specs for a 25Gb Blu-ray disk for it's next generation of optical storage devices. What's interesting about it, is that the media is 51 percent paper, and the disks are supposed to be bio-degradeable. This is another in the growing number of products that promise environmental responsibility through bio-degradeability. But is this really so? At the rate that CDs are currently bought, and discarded, it might appear that bio-degradeability would be a plus. However, with short term storage media (i.e. flash) becoming so much cheaper, and being very easily re-writeable - in most cases, flash drives mount as standard hard drive disks - shouldn't mass storage media be longer lasting? Imagine the damage a bend in the paper could do. Even if this paper disk is as chemically stable as a CDROM, that only gives 20 years of archiveability. Early CDs are just begining to fail, but over time, some artists will have to be re-released, or fade away completely. A recent study in PC-Active Magazine, found that many name brand and generic manufacturers are producing CD-R disks that become un-readeable in two years. From the first time a human scrawled an image on a rock face, through the advent of paper, and books, to our present digital age, we have understood more and more how valuable information is. And yet we have protected it less and less. Maybe it's time we started re-considering our values, for our children't environmental, and informational legacy.
And, if you're interested in more try a throw away culture search for starters.
Celtic Manuscript

Fueled by dottocomu

Permalink

Previous post: Carnegie Mellon is the Bomb

Next post: Design-O-Matic

Longevity Vs Biodegradeability

04/16/04

Search

Categories

Archives