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Cerebral palsy charity Scope said that its stores are receiving 'sack loads' of unwanted discs - both old and new material - as people clear out CD collections that cover an estimated 23,000 miles of shelf space across the UK.

However the charity-minded are far outnumbered by those who offload their CDs on eBay. The auction site said that the average person could make hundreds of pounds by selling their collection.

In a survey of 1,000 people eBay found that there are 7.38 billion CDs in the UK worth as much as £52bn in the secondhand market. By the end of the year up to a third of those discs will have been ripped and the music transferred to a portable player.

'People might have a certain attachment to the CDs in their collection,' said Charlie Coney, an eBay spokesman. 'But once you've replaced your favourite albums with their MP3 counterparts, CDs become little more than tea coasters.'

Coney added that people are also investing more in vinyl, as it is continuing to prove much more collectable than CDs.