Vinyl and CD recycling scheme backed by UK independent record shops

A new vinyl and CD recycling scheme preventing unplayable music being sent to landfill has received backing from a number of prominent independent UK record shops. 

Key Production Group’s service was first unveiled in 2020. The programme has now relaunched for World Recycling Day — which takes place on Tuesday 18th March. Rough Trade and Sister Ray are among the retailers now looking to the initiative as a solution for their own damaged stock.

Key Production also offers vinyl and CD circularity to the public, with records and discs sent directly to the company for mechanical recycling. Suitable items are shredded into small fragments and distributed to facilities where they can be melted into original base materials. Wax becomes recycled PVC, and compact discs recycled polycarbonate. These products are then used to make new items, with an extensive list of possible applications. 

“Sustainability is a vital part of our identity here at Key Production Group and the idea to develop Key Production Recycling was born from our commitment to understanding and managing the lifecycle of physical music products, prompting us to ask: what happens when they can no longer be used,” said John Service, strategy & sustainability director at Key Production Group. “We are so excited to be working with labels and record stores across the country and allow the public to utilise something that is so beneficial.” 

“To us, having a second hand section of vinyl records in store, disposing of our stock in the correct way is crucial,” added Sister Ray’s Sarah Haigh. “Although recycling CDs and vinyl records may not be on top of everyone’s list of tasks, it is for us and at one point or another, it will be for the public, so having access to Key Production Recycling is so useful.”

According to Key Production Group’s recycling service, 30,000 vinyl records and almost 80,000 CDs were sent for destruction in 2024. Last week, DJ Mag reported on the first vinyl pressing plant in the UK to be recognised as carbon neutral.