Save the Vinyl #8: Vinyl Bowl

Every week, more and more DJs finally “ditch the decks” and go digital. That’s an awful lot of old vinyl hanging around out there. While high-profile DJs continue to auction off their records on eBay (the latest was Digital DJ Tips friend and long-time UK DJ/producer Mike Monday), still more find that once they’ve sold the best of their stuff, they’ve got a load of unwanted, unloved old vinyl left that nobody seems interested in.

If you’ve got cardboard boxes piled up with old promos, unloved white labels, and other vinyl that’s surplus to your requirements, then this series is for you. For a bit of monthly Sunday fun, we look for ways resourceful individuals are recycling vinyl to keep it in our lives, if not on our record decks. This month we bring you the vinyl bowl!

The above is a commercially available version, costing a not-insubstantial US$39/£25/€30 from Hard To Find Records:

“Not only are these Vinyl Bowls eco-friendly but they are also a very cool way of bringing back some retro chic to your living room,” they say.

“Carefully shaped from abandoned vinyl records, these vinyl cut-outs are carefully coated so that you can use them as party pieces, without fear of damaging them with party snacks or whatever you choose to fill your bowl with. In support of the vinyl revolution.”

However, a DJ friend of mine showed me the same thing that he’d made himself by putting old records in the oven until pliable and then bending them.

While a lot wonkier, it still had a certain charm – and you can try it at home, although I don’t vouch for the safety or the results.

Good luck with recycling your old vinyl, and do let us know of any uses you’ve found for, or ways to extend the life of, your old records.