VINYL: Maybe it's time we had an intervention.
Benn JordanCited 6× on HN, 2019–2025
commentary · general · evergreen · 2019–2025 on HN
Benn Jordan measures air quality around vinyl records with a pollution meter and finds high particulate and VOC levels. He argues vinyl should be modernized.
Cited as the source for claims that PVC records outgas harmful compounds, usually in vinyl revival threads.
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6 comments from Hacker News
> As far as I know vinyl is toxic ▶ this video "Vinyl: Maybe it's time we had an intervention" by Benn Jordan. tl;dw: He puts a VOC meter to a vinyl record and yep they're definitely toxic. Remember, if you smell something, it's going inside your body. That includes "new plastic smell", farts, etc. > This is just my objective opinion based on a whole lotta research... if you're an avid vinyl collector whose pee-pee hurts after watching this video, understand that my pee-pee hurts a whole lot more.
Books don't give us cancer like records do. Unfortunately, the PVC used will off-gas even when they're not being played[1], so this even applies to the 48%[2] of record buyers who never play them. [1] ▶ this video [2] link
Re: vinyl records Has anyone proven / disproven Benn Jordan's video about why vinyl is basically poisonous? ▶ this video I haven't watched it for a while but the summary is: - Vinyl records outgas harmful things that you can detect with air quality meters. (VOCs I think) - You can't dispose of them because they can't be recycled and aren't supposed to go in landfills. So buying new records from new bands violates the "reduce, reuse, recycle" principle "It's just that it's _so_ lame and uncool to shit on vinyl..." "This is just my objective opinion based on a whole lotta research... If you're an avid collector whose peepee hurts after watching this video, understand that my peepee hurts a whole lot more."
There is a bit of a sad downside to vinyl: it seems to release toxic chemicals into the air where its being played or even just stored [0]. I hope there are ways to find alternative materials because I thoroughly enjoy the medium overall. [0] ▶ this video
So I've been thinking a lot about this video recently: ▶ this video It talks about, demonstrates and measures the air quality around vinyl. Apparently the things are leaching dangerous compounds into the air constantly, especially when being played. It made his air quality measuring device give an alarm, instead of just reporting the number of particles or something. I'm not sure, maybe it's just one of those thousands of every day life things which are technically carcinogenic, or not. It made me pause personally though, having recently lost a friend, who worked at a record store, died at a young age to cancer, had otherwise always been a strong healthy man. I'm actually more comfortable talking about this here, semi-anonymously, I don't think it'd be wise to bring this up IRL with anyone, on account of it possibly not having to do with anything. I kind of half-wish I hadn't seen the video.
I just watched the GP video, and science does seem to support that vinyl records are likely dangerous. The video creator uses an air pollution meter[0] to find out that his records are causing very high PM 2.5, VOC, and formaldehyde. The vinyl records seem to only need to be taken out of their sleeves. The results look shocking. There have to be some HN users who have the knowledge and equipment to attempt to replicate this experiment. Please do that and share! [0] ▶ this video