Michael Stipe is changing the game this Friday (September 2) on both the music front and the environmental front. His new, double-sided single “Future If Future” (a song originally released in 2018) will be the world’s first commercially available bioplastic 12″ vinyl record, coupled with Beatie Wolfe’s “Oh My Heart.”
This release is part of a larger Bandcamp project in collaboration with “Future If Future” producer Brian Eno’s environmental charity EarthPercent that will include over 100 other songs. The bioplastic vinyl, designed by British music sustainability organization Evolution Music, is said to be “a genuinely revolutionary moment for both the music industry and record collectors, offering a non-fossil fuel future for vinyl recordings that globally amount to around 180 million LPs — or 30,000 tons of PVC — a year. The solution uses circular economy principles to replace the harmful production and use of single use plastics and minimize waste in the music industry.”
The goal is to replace polyvinyl chloride, a plastic labeled “the most environmentally damaging” according to Greenpeace, with a more viable alternative. The single will be limited to 500 copies pressed on fossil-fuel-free vinyl. Stipe says, “Simply showing that this type of solution-based project is possible opens pathways to a brighter future.”
Check out images of the vinyl and Wolfe holding a test pressing above.
