The best plasticless option for watching movies is to LEGALLY download them onto your computer. The most convenient way to watch movies is to buy or rent DVDs. If you have a collection of DVDs, a cheap and environmentally friendly way to watch some fresh content is to join LendAround. Here are the basic facts as presented on LendAround.com:
The average household has over 10 DVDs.
The average web user has 25 friends.
If you share, that’s free movies for five years.*
LendAround has lots of typical social media components and it is linked up to Facebook. I think the site will appeal to people who like showing off their refined eclectic taste in movies and it will appeal to people who like to virtually nose around in other people’s stuff. The frugal aspect is icing on the cake. If I lived in a less obscure place, I would enjoy participating. If I was participating, I would bemoan the fact that I sold or gave away all of my DVDs before I moved. The kids still have a few cherished ones, like Harry Potter. I suspect that almost everyone who wanted to watch that movie has a copy of their own.
I didn’t find the perfect picture to accompany this post, but browsing through flickr opened my eyes to just how huge some people’s DVD collections can get. This is a LOT of plastic. I really wish the industry would change to a minimal packaging standard, preferably one without plastic.
March 7th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I agree. I haven’t bought a new CD or DVD in ages. I download the music I want and watch movies via Netflix because I just don’t enjoy sitting at my computer watching downloaded movies. For me, movie watching is a great group activity, and I just can’t imagine my friends and I squinting at my computer monitor. But that’s just me, I guess.
March 7th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I used the Canadian equivalent to Netflix when I lived there. I think the fact that CDs can get mailed multiple times in cardboard without a problem just goes to show how unnecessary typical packaging is.
March 7th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Reducing waste and use of plastic was one of the big reasons why we started LendAround.
We’ve done a few other things to reduce the environmental impact of watching movies:
- Because LendAround is about lending and borrowing with friends, our users can get DVDs by hand rather than by mail, and get some free exercise in the bargain.
- When you need to send a movie to a friend by mail, you can do it for 42c on LendAround by sending the DVD sleeve in a printable preaddressed wrapper, which you can download off our web site. You can use recycled paper for this, or even print on the back of something you don’t need any more.
- Our system allows you to nominate individually the friends you trust to borrow your movies. When one borrows a movie and another friend wants to see it, the movie can be sent straight from friend A to friend B — meaning that it only needs to make one journey per viewing, instead of two.
There are some other neat things we’ve built which should appear to anyone who’s concerned about the environment. Please try it out and see…