Disposable DVD's Fail To catch On

A Texas grocery chain has decided to stop selling disposable DVDs, a product that outraged environmentalists and apparently didn't sell too well, either.

About 20 H-E-B grocery stores in the Austin area sold the EZ-Ds, vacuum-sealed movies that, once opened, play for 48 hours before a chemical reaction on the surface of the discs renders them unplayable.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of Disney, has been test marketing the product since September. More than 30 movies are now available in the disposable format, including Chicago, Freaky Friday and The Waterboy. The discs sell for about $7.

H-E-B stores will stop selling the EZ-Ds in the next two or three weeks, according to Susan Ghertner, environmental affairs manager for the grocery chain.

Ghertner said the decision was not made for environmental reasons; rather, company officials "made the decision strictly on sales."

"It just wasn't a good fit for us," she said. "It didn't turn out to be an item that our customers were looking for."

A Buena Vista representative declined to comment.

Environmentalists cheered the news. "We consider this a big victory," said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, which has protested outside stores that sell the EZ-Ds. "We are calling on other retailers to follow the lead of H-E-B."

"There are clearly less-wasteful alternatives to marketing movies than disposable DVDs," she said.

Flexplay, the company that manufactures the discs, has touted the product as a solution for those who find renting movies inconvenient and are sick of paying late fees. "Make it EASY on yourself," the EZ-D website reads.

The disposable movies are currently available in three other markets around the country: Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri; Charleston, South Carolina; and Peoria and Bloomington, Illinois. Stores that sell the movies include 7-Eleven, Walgreens, Winn-Dixie, Sam Goody and Cub Foods, among others.

Last October, Wired News surveyed a handful of stores that sell the EZ-D and found that the product hadn't really caught on with shoppers.

Buena Vista and Flexplay offer several options for those conscientious customers who want to recycle their expired EZ-Ds. Movie fans can mail old EZ-Ds to GreenDisk to be recycled, or they can drop off the useless DVDs at drop-off sites listed on the EZ-D website.

Customers also can participate in the EZ-D Incentive Program, which awards a free disposable DVD to customers who send back six expired movies.

Related stories: No Green Disposable DVDs.
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Self-Destructing DVDs Go On Sale in US.
Disc Pirates See the Potential in Self-Destructing DVDs".

Story source: wired.com.