What's better for the environment — downloading music or buying CDs?

Like most things green, there's a simple answer and then there's the complicated fallout.

The easy answer is that downloading music files onto your computer is the eco-friendlier option [0] for lots of reasons. It reduces the need for CDs (made from all sorts of metals and whatnot), plastic (for the cases), paper (for the liner notes), and transportation costs (both to ship the CDs to a store near you an your trip to and from the store.)

The question hadn't occurred to me before I came across it while surfing around Treehugger [1] yesterday. They cited 2003 study by Digital Europe, which evaluated three common ways to buy music: Buying a CD at a store, buying a CD online and downloading the music online.

Your "eco-rucksack" (some variation of your eco-footprint) from the three options goes like this: Buying a CD from a store means you use 1.6 kg (I have no idea what these numbers actually mean, only that smaller is better). Ordering a CD online uses 1.3 kg. But downloading music is the clear winner, coming in at 0.7 kg. But if you then burn your downloaded music onto a CD, you're up to a whopping 5.5 kg.

But here's the confusing part: Computers and MP3 players pose ecological risks of their own. The pros and cons of the entire issue are parsed out in interesting detail at the Guardian's Ethical Living site [2], a cool London-based blog.

Considering that I buy my fair share of music each month, I want to make the smartest choices. But since I've already got a computer and iPod, sticking with the easy answer probably is the most eco-friendly option for me at this point. I also reduce paper waste by downloading podcasts [2].

Besides, one of the things I like best about downloading music is that I can cherry-pick the songs that I like, instead of purchasing an entire album. From that standpoint, maybe I'm reducing noise pollution too.