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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Technology
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Do they last more than 20 years in ideal conditions?
Optical discs are already incredibly resistant and shouldn't be expected to fail in your lifetime. Most of the times they do, it's either old media (cd and dvd both had physical flaws in design), damage, or mistakes in manufacturing.
There's really no reason for the discs to degrade. It's just stamped plastic.
When they say plastic takes [huge number] of years to decompose, they're talking about how long it takes to disappear completely. The usable lifetime for most plastic objects seems to be only a few decades. (I don't know about the specific plastic they use for optical discs, though.)