THE popularity of MP3 players is creating a mountain of unused CDs, claims on-line market place eBay.

Music lovers are steadily transferring their collections to the compressed files which can be stored on computers and portable players.

Many of the 7.38bn CDs owned by UK households are becoming redundant as a result, the on-line auction site claims.

eBay estimates music from CDs worth £17.2bn will have been transferred on to MP3 players in the UK by the end of this year.

A CD mountain worth up to £52bn would be created if everyone in the UK transferred their CD music collections to the MP3 format, the auction site said.

eBay.co.uk spokesman Charlie Coney urged music lovers to think about re-selling their neglected CDs.

On average one CD is sold on eBay's UK site every seven seconds.

* Most commercially recorded music is protected by copyright law.