I’m into video art and VHS mould is a big thing. People will keep ‘clean’ players to avoid contamination - it’s sad to think of all that media that right now is disappearing forever 
Although digital perminance is a myth too - copyright takedowns, accounts being closed, services ending. I’ve seen a lot of digital media gone forever too.
I used to work for the BBC restoring, digitising and archiving the national radio archive from shellac 78’s, vinyl, 1/4 inch reel-to-reel tape and DAT. We made digital masters (of course) as well as CD backups. We had a Korean company supply the BBC with custom made gold plated CD’s for this purpose. Apparently the dye in ‘normal’ CD’s degrades over time depending on the quality of the CD. None of the commercially available CD’s were up to the task of being a reliable backup source for such precious and historically important material. Just as I left the BBC job we were already starting to re-backup the CD’s created when I first started.
I think you get it free when you install the software.
I think that’s subjective. CDs mostly sound like shit to me. Overbright and they were the format that capture the most extreme battles in the Loudness War.
I’ve solved it!
We need start listening to songs backwards!
In theory, it should restore the electricity used and suck it’s carbon footprint back inside!
So simple all along! 
Glad to hear that all of that stuff is preserved - I assume most of it not publically available, too?
Would be good to have a Prelinger style BBC archive - I would DEVOUR it.
In streaming it is re-downloaded each time and the infrastructures put in place are grandiose.
My vinyl, cassette or cd travels in stages with all its little comrades, arrives at the listener and generally stays there for many listenings.
The carbon footprint is divided with each replay, loan, donation, resale…
It is certainly an opinion, but I put my hand to cut that the physical support keeps the advantage.
And that’s nothing compared to Netflix, Amazon my balls and pirating in high res formats today.
CD’s sound exactly like what was put into them, ignoring obviously the effect of your stereo or headphones. Nothing wrong with the audio quality of the format per se , it’s intentionally neutral.
Couldn’t you choose to frame it the reverse though? You make it sound like CD’s are grown organically on trees 
The material posted above is fairly good - hostbody provided links but we were finding the same sources.
As a basic measurement you need to listen to an album 5 times for it to be environmentally economical to purchase a CD, from a manufacturing perspective (per 30 years or so, by the sounds of the above).
There are other aspects to that though as mentioned.
Apple’s data center is solar powered - is the CD factory in Guangzhou?
I mostly stream music whilst working - so most of the infrustracture in that equation is active regardless.
It’s complex
I’ll be cranking 24/7, not even listening to music 
I was a big fan of solar panels at first but when dead they are uber toxic to the environment when they break down. So I want to be a good human, yet I let the next generations pay for an environmental time bomb I was part of creating. Kind of depressing.
Well there’s that too…
Why is life so complicated?
And why is it so DAMN HOT?
Us
I know I’m not!
Sadly not. I made my own copies of some of the more psychedelic experimental stuff from the 70’s and 80’s
Hehe, then man eating is the solution. 
No foot, no foot print.
More On Topic,
I remember these gone CD player days where serious manufacturers like NAIM etc. tried to solve all the mechanical issues (e.g. vibrations, synchronicity) what resulted in sophisticated very expensive CD players only few wanted to afford.
So I’m not sorry that we have alternatives nowadays.
Recordable CDs are completely different from pressed CDs.
Minidisc fans, check this out: The MiniDisc deck you hoped to never see - YouTube
Being an (ex?) Archivist he would know the difference. But, even pressed CD’s have an expiration date.
