Read an E-Book Week, March 9-15
Part of Rita Toews’ news release for Read An E-Book Week, March 9-15…
The week is set aside to educate consumers about reading electronic books and other reading material. E-books are delivered to the end user electronically. They are read on devices such as the new Sony portable reader or Amazon’s Kindle. They are destroyed with the push of a delete button, without ever taking up room in a landfill.
It takes 24 trees to produce a ton of printing paper, the type normally used for books, 12 trees are harvested for a ton of newsprint. Up to 35% of books printed for consumers (down from nearly 60% several years ago) are never read. They are used for window dressing in book stores, and eventually returned to the publisher for disposal in landfills. Given that a mature tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year, a serious alternative to paper books, magazines and newspapers needs to be considered. That alternative is e-books.
Before purchasing your next paper book, magazine or newspaper, consider your carbon footprint commitment. Read electronically.
Consider hosting a small banner in exchange for a link on the Read An E-Book Week supporter page.
Related: 50 Reasons why e-books are better, from Mike Fook.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Oh puhlease… almost all trees harvested for paper are from fast-growing sustainable sources. It’s hardwoods that are under threat. Despite this, I broadly agree with the sentiment that there’s an environmental impact (primarily in bleaching the paper, I think, not to mention transporting tons of it all over the world.) with p-books but I don’t think there’s much to fear from a sudden book-buying craze taking my breath away.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Consider also that current ebook reading devices, manufactured with plenty of non-renewable and toxic materials, will end up in landfill in a few years.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Many books are now published in the far east, and the issues of environmental damage to Asian forests are non-trivial–something the book industry is (perhaps belatedly) concerning itself with. Many of the inks used in printing also include toxic elements.
Shipping paper books from Asia to American warehouses, to retail establishments or retail through UPS to individual homes adds to the environmental cost of paper.
I certainly agree, however, that we as eBook readers and vendors, need to be aware of our own environmental footprint. I hope that Sony, Amazon, and eBookWise will all actively pursue recycling strategies (I also hope Palm, HP, and other PDA makers will do the same).
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the little-considered environmental costs of paper books is the need for huge environmentally controlled storage areas for owned books. What percentage of your home is devoted to books rather than people?
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
February 18th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Let’s see, if I read 120 books per year and the Kindle lasts for even 5 years that is a device smaller than a book to replace 600 books in land fill. Pretty good trade off I would say.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Is is March 9-15 or March 2-8? I’m finding conflicting reports online (imagine that…), but the news release you link to at the top says March 2-8.