As you are probably aware, America On Line (AOL) has probably mailed
out enough diskettes and CDs to satisfy the needs of every person
in the world several times over.
There are now two Websites dedicated to sending a million CDs back
to AOL. They are collecting CDs from Netscape, CompuServe, and AOL,
which are all connected corporately. Their goal is to amass 1,000,000
of these CDs, which they will then return to their originator.
This is a rather interesting idea. There are certainly enough of
those things out there to last everyone on earth a lifetime, or
several lifetimes if you believe in such things.
These CDs are an environmental concern. Valuable hydrocarbons (read:
imported oil) are used to produce them. Fuel and labor are expended
to distribute them. After homeowners and businesses discard them
the trash trucks must haul them away.
The landfills must be choking up with millions of these things.
As far as we know there is no way to recycle plastic CDs and it
is not safe to burn them.
USA
A Bigger Threat Than
King Kong?
Canada
We receive one or two of these CDs every month by mail.
We keep the newest ones on hand, along with some of the
password cards, in case some day we need to have a dial-up
connection. Over the past three years we have had broadband
Internet we have not needed these CDs but it is nice to
know we are covered if the DSL ever dies at a critical time.
So, will the good folks collecting a million CDs be able
to convince AOL to stop mailing so many of these things
out? Or will marketing hype prevail? Only time will tell.
