Coldplay to make vinyl albums from plastic bottles

Coldplay are one of the world's biggest-selling bands

Coldplay say they are aiming to make the most eco-friendly album yet, with their newly-announced 10th record, Moon Music.

Each vinyl copy of the album will be pressed onto discs made from nine plastic bottles, recovered from consumer waste.

A special "notebook" edition will also be comprised of 70% river plastic, taken from the Rio Las Vacas in Guatemala.

The band say this will reduce carbon emissions by 85% and prevent the manufacture of more than 25 metric tonnes of virgin plastic.

The group has been at the forefront of the move to make rock music more sustainable.

In 2021, they announced a plan to cut the carbon footprint of their Music Of The Spheres World Tour, by using solar powered lights and sustainable aviation fuel amongst other measures.

This led to a 59% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared to their previous tour.

Vinyl records have seen a massive resurgence over the last decade, with sales reaching a 20-year peak of 5.9 million units in the UK last year.

But the material used to create vinyl - PVC - is a by-product of the oil industry and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill.

Researchers at Keele University estimate that vinyl records typically contain around 135g of PVC material with a carbon footprint of 0.5kg of carbon dioxide.

Artists including Billie Eilish, Idles, Brent Faiyaz and Holly Humberstone have recently made efforts to reduce that footprint by using recycled or eco-vinyl.

And in 2019, Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey achieved a world first by releasing his single In The Anthropocene on what has become known as "ocean vinyl" - made from plastic found by beach-combing in the south of the UK.

Coldplay will also release CD editions of Moon Music on a new format called EcoCD - created from 90% recycled plastic, with a 78% reduction in emissions compared with traditional CD manufacture.

Vinyl's increasing popularity is at odds with many bands' environmental credentials

Moon Music is the band's 10th album, adding to a discography that stretches back to 2000's Parachutes, which included their breakthrough single, Yellow.

The new record sees the band reunite with Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin, who also produced 2021's Music Of The Spheres.

The first single, feelslikeimfallinginlove, will be released on 21 June - a week before they headline Glastonbury for a record-breaking fifth time.

A video for the song was recently shot at the ancient Roman theatre, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, situated on the southern slope of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.

Fans were invited to attend the historic venue last week as Coldplay performed the song. Video from the evening shows the stone and marble steps lit up with the vibrant LED wristbands the group distribute at their concerts.

Moon Music will also feature a song called One World, for which thousands fans were invited to contribute backing vocals through the Coldplay website.

The album is due for release on 4 October, 2024.