Universal Goes Green With Packaging

BY Allison MuszynskiPublished Apr 1, 2008

Universal Music Group is the latest big buck corporation to go green. More than 20 of the label’s albums will be packaged in recycled paperboard — even the inserts are somehow made from wildflower seeds. No really, seeds!

The new "REPAK CD” package is a part of Shorewood Packaging’s "greenchoice” movement. The packages are plastic-free containing third-party certified, renewable recycled paper that will also include three free music downloads from UMG. We like free stuff, sounds good.

These greener albums include artists such as Nirvana, Lynard Skynard and Marvin Gaye, and oddly, only artists' "greatest hits" packages have been selected for the greening. (Why they haven't greened every forthcoming album on their schedule is a bit of a head-scratcher.)

Perhaps if Universal really wanted to be friendlier to Mother Nature it should stop producing albums that everyone and their mother already has a copy of. But hey, if you misplaced those "hits” by K-Ci & JoJo or New Found Glory, at least you can pick one up that won’t hurt the environment as much as it does our bleeding ears.

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