The Green Vinyl Records project

The Green Vinyl Records project is a collaboration between 8 Dutch companies with as well business, research as education backgrounds. Our goal: to reduce the amount of energy and waste within the vinyl record manufacturing process. This by developing durable plastics and clean, low-energy injection moulding processes. Maintaining the familiar vinyl record feeling is key within this process. And that’s our biggest challenge: to create and maintain the same feeling, with new materials and manufacturing processes. 

Cooperation through open innovation

The project group develops the sustainable alternative for plastic and clean energy-poor injection molding production processes in an open innovation environment. This means that we work intensively with as well business, research as educational institutes and share these techniques and insights. Together we create a test environment in which knowledge will be validated and disseminated. We are investigating not only a new, durable solution for plastics, but also new injection molding and molding techniques. Thanks to this combination we are able to achieve a significant energy reduction of at least 60%.

Why vinyl records?

While the sale of the Compact Disc continues to decline, the sales of vinyl records are rising spectacular. In 2015, even the number of vinyl records sold doubled to 650,000 (50% compared to the previous year). However, the LP, made of plastic, is still often produced with outdated techniques. There has been little innovation within the last 40 years, which makes the production process particularly energy-intensive, with a lot of harmful residual waste. The Green Vinyl Records project group therefore considers it important to redevelop the production process, in addition to the development of environmentally friendly plastics.

The vision of theproject partners

  • "The vinyl record production methods so far sometimes go back in time for up to 50 years, with a lot of manual work. With our solution, the production process goes automatically, we lower the cost per record and deliver better, more environmentally friendly materials."
    Ferry Koot, Koot Automation

Project members

  • Fontys1
  • Koot
  • Mikrocentrum
  • logo mpb
  • PRG
  • tb RecordIndustry
  • Symcon
  • Geelen