Entertainment News – Hometown News Now

The DVD rental company Redbox is no more – but unfortunately there are still more than 20,000 DVD vending machines, and that’s creating a costly problem for the stores they’re parked outside.

Here’s why: The 890-pound films are not easy to remove.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the 24,000 machines still found outside Walgreens, 7-Elevens and countless other stores across the country have created a headache. Not only are they heavy, but in many cases they are hardwired into the concrete and into the store’s electricity. They also contain coolant that must be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner.

The newspaper reports that Walgreens, for example, still spends $184,000 a month to power its nearly 5,400 machines – even though you can’t rent anything from them – because they are connected to their stores’ power supply.

The stores also need bankruptcy court approval to spend hundreds of dollars to shut them down and move them away.

What to do if the connection is lost? In most cases the machines are scrapped. However, one enterprising person ditches the DVDs and figures out how to release cannabis from them.

Another got lucky and made a deal with someone who was hired to move one of the boxes. Nineteen years old Jacob Helton plans to donate his 500 films and use the machine to display his own collection. “I wanted a Redbox computer because I felt that Redbox was important in the history of American media,” he says. “Its collapse marks the end of the video rental era.”

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