Ban The Box: How the CD Longbox Became an Environmental Villain
The defining debate of the early compact disc era centered around the longbox, a wasteful form of packaging pushed by retailers and paper manufacturers.
Thirty years ago, the record industry decided it didn’t want to be the record industry anymore.
It wanted to be the CD industry, with maybe some cassettes on the side. It was getting rid of all that vinyl! This situation, oddly enough, may just repeat in 2018 — except, this time, not by choice.
Best Buy is about to throw out its record racks entirely; Target is making the idea of selling physical CDs less financially advantageous for record labels. It’s a move that’s likely to have a big impact on the industry — and also likely to create some awkward situations at retail, just like dropping all that vinyl did in 1988.
Let’s ponder one of those awkward situations — the longbox, a dumb solution to a dumb problem.
1968
The year that the National Association of Recording Merchandisers first proposed a 4-inch-by-12-inch standard case for cassette tapes, according to Cash Box. (A standard compact cassette is 4 inches by 2.5 inches.) The report notes that the…
