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Companies weighing how to delete now-defunct Redbox’s DVD vending machines

Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on October 11, 2024

The DVD rental company Redbox is no more — but unfortunately, its more than 20,000 DVD vending machines still are, and that’s causing a pricey problem for the stores in front of which they’re parked.

At issue: The 890-pound, movies-stuffed boxes aren’t easy to remove.

The Wall Street Journal reports the 24,000 machines that can still be found in front of Walgreens, 7-Elevens and myriad other stores across the country have become a headache. Not only are they heavy, but in many cases, they’re bolted to the concrete and hard-wired into the store’s electricity. They also contain coolant that has to be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.

The paper reports that Walgreens, for example, is still shelling out $184,000 a month to keep its nearly 5,400 machines powered up — even though you can’t rent anything from them — because they’re connected to their stores’ power supply.

The stores also need permission from the bankruptcy court to spend hundreds of dollars to have them disconnected and carted off.

Once they are disconnected, what to do? In most cases, the machines are being scrapped. However, one enterprising person is ditching the DVDs and figuring out how to dispense cannabis from it.

Another got lucky and struck a deal with someone hired to cart one of the boxes off. Nineteen-year-old Jacob Helton plans to donate its 500 movies and use the machine to display his own collection. “I wanted a Redbox machine because I felt like Redbox is important in the history of American media,” he says. “Its collapse marks the end of the video rental era.”