Reduce, reuse, recycle

By Peter Somerford

News and events from around the world this month

Read all the breaking news in the string world online www.thestrad.com

D’Addario strings being collected and prepared for recyclin0067

COURTESY D’ADDARIO

The development of a string set made with recycled material has laid down a new marker in the violin industry for companies conscious of their environmental responsibility at a time of intense public concern about the climate crisis. Slovakian string company

Warchal has recently released a set of limitededition, synthetic-core strings called ‘Phoenix 2020’, which incorporate silver from used Warchal strings recovered through the firm’s string recycling programme. Sustainability is an issue for the whole industry, but manufacturers are arguably at the sharp end, not only because their products are disposable but also because many strings have multi-metal and multi-material constructions, which makes recycling their components both technically and economically challenging. Warchal founder Bohdan Warchal says the recycling process his company uses is able to separate silver from strings in its purest condition. ‘Phoenix is the result of the pioneering programme we started in 2013, and beyond the product’s “environmentally friendly” aspect in reusing a limited resource, it is also the best quality we have ever achieved in a string.’ As for the other metals in strings, such as aluminium, Warchal says that recycling them, while possible, would not be cost-effective for such a small amount of collected material. He explains: ‘After extracting the silver from the strings, we keep the rest of the material, so that we can explore how we process and recycle it in the future. This material needs time to accumulate, and also the recycling technologies for separating synthetics are continually evolving.’

In the US, strings giant D’Addario has been recycling strings since 2016 through its Playback programme, which it runs in partnership with TerraCycle, a specialist upcycling and recycling company. Musicians can either send in used strings of any brand – once they’ve collected at least two pounds’ worth – or drop them off at one of nearly 600 participating retailers across the country. D’Addario’s director of product management Brian Vance says that more than four million strings have so far been recycled through the programme: ‘The vast majority are guitar strings; I would estimate that less than five per cent are orchestral.’ TerraCycle’s operation separates the all-nylon guitar treble strings from metal strings; the nylon is recycled into industrial plastic applications and the metal is melted down and smelted into new metal alloys, to be used in products such as wheel rims. Vance says separating out the various metals and components in many of the collected strings would be ‘nearly impossible’ and certainly not cost-effective. ‘There is so little synthetic material in a synthetic-core string that it’s not possible to rescue it. Anything that isn’t metal is burned off.’ He adds: ‘Our hope is that some day there will be enough critical mass of strings being recycled to encourage municipal recycling facilities to build a process for multi-metal strings.’

‘Synthetic-core material stretches out under tension, gradually changing the string characteristics’ – Fan Tao, R&D director, D’Addario

The three-Rs mantra of sustainability sets Reduce and Reuse together with, or rather ahead of Recycle, so how can the string world address these other two responsibilities? One answer is that string manufacturers should be making strings that last as long as possible, even if that means they ultimately sell fewer strings. D’Addario’s R&D director Fan Tao points to research that the company is doing in its guitar sector to develop various coatings for strings to increase their longevity. ‘Guitar strings go dead very quickly, and guitarists use many more strings in a given time than violinists do with violin strings,’ he says. ‘With orchestral strings, the steel-core models used by younger students tend to last a long time, but the synthetic-core strings favoured by most advanced players are another matter. The core material stretches out under tension, gradually changing the string characteristics, and limiting the lifetime of those strings.’ In terms of reusing strings, there are lutherie organisations and music projects, such as Luthiers Sans Frontières (Luthiers Without Borders), that can put strings to good use. Wilder & Davis Luthiers in Montreal and Banff, Canada, collects donations of strings, accessories, cases and instruments to use in various social initiatives, such as the ConCuerda project in Colombia to restore and repair stringed instruments for youth and children’s orchestras.

Beyond the three Rs, there is the question of when petroleumderived materials in violin strings might be phased out completely, given the need for the world to move away from fossil fuels in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and given the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfill and the marine environment. Accepting that the quantity of synthetic material in synthetic core strings is dwarfed by the amount of metal used, and that, in terms of emissions, other activities such as air travel to trade fairs and the transportation of products have a much greater environmental impact, one should nevertheless hope for a future scenario in which petroleum-derived synthetic cores are replaced by equally highperformance bio-based thermoplastics made from renewable resources. ‘Plastics companies are introducing resins made from plant oils,’ notes Tao, ‘but most of our high-end violin strings are made with Zyex or other PEEK (polyether ether ketone) fibres, and as far as I know there are no plant-based resin equivalents for that material.’ Warchal says: ‘We will certainly be happy to switch to plant-based fibres if they meet the quality requirements one day, but it’s not our priority right now.’

NEWS IN BRIEF

Goldmund Quartet picks up €60k award – plus a full set of Strads bit.ly/2l3iGmY The Nippon Music Foundation has announced that the Goldmund Quartet has been granted use of the so-called ‘Paganini Quartet’ – made up of two violins, a viola and a cello, all made by Antonio Stradivari and once owned by Nicolò Paganini. The Munich-based foursome will have the instruments for four years from the 2019– 20 season; their first performance using them took place on 10 October. In addition, the Goldmund Quartet has recently been awarded the 2020 Jürgen Ponto Foundation music prize, worth €60,000.

Baltimore musicians sign one-year contract to halt strike bit.ly/2liFZcI As The Strad went to press, it was announced that the musicians and management of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have agreed on a one-year contract, ending a strike that had been ongoing since June. The new contract guarantees an annual base salary of $81,438.50, as well as fewer paid weeks of work: 40, as opposed to the 52 in 2018–19.

Frank Almond announces final season as Milwaukee concertmaster bit.ly/2m7JbYK The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has announced that Frank Almond will step down as concertmaster at the end of the 2019–20 season. Almond (left) was appointed by Zdeněk Mácal, and served through the tenures of Andreas Delfs, Edo de Waart and current music director Ken-David Masur. He was thrust into the spotlight in 2014 when the ‘Lipiński’ Stradivari, which had been on permanent loan to him since 2008, was stolen from him in an armed robbery and subsequently recovered and returned to him.