Would you stop buying new books to save the World's forests?

Is the book publishing industry environmentally unfriendly? If so, how? If not, how is it environmentally responsible?

Should we be only buying used books? If so, how can new works be published? Are there environmentally friendly alternatives to ink and paper, other than display monitors?

Will environmental concerns lead to the death of the book as we know it?

What do you think?

Very good questions Autodafe.

I think the easy answer is a resounding yes--the book publishing industry is environmentally unfriendly. Let us forget for a moment about the production and distribution of their products, as any produced product will cause pollution. For me, the most offensive aspect of the publishing industry is their contribution to the cutting down of trees. Books could easily be made from recycled paper, or better yet, a non-tree fibber such as hemp.

It is true that a book’s life is most likely going to be several, if not hundreds of years long. Therefore, the trees used are used for a much better cause than say junk mail, but this is also a problem because the book will most likely never be recycled into anything else--save perhaps for propping up the edge of an old sofa or something. ;-)

Thankfully, in recent years I have seen more books stating that they are printed on recycled paper, but at this point, those books are certainly a small percentage of the available books.

I do not think we will see the end of real books, and frankly, I hope not--I cannot imagine what I would do without them. There were those who believed that new technologies, such as e-books, would replace the real thing, but of course, that has not happened. Even if it had, computers are no more friendly to the Earth, environmentally speaking.

While buying used books is good for many reasons, I don’t see that it “fixes” my main issue that I stated above. Like many people I know, most of the used book that I purchase are books that are out of print. As you say, new books have to be printed sometime, if we (the world in general) are to have anything new to read. I just think that those new books could be printed using vegetable-based inks on tree-free paper. This of course would increase the cost of production, which would be passed onto consumers, who would most likely protest the increase, as most people (especially in the “Western World”) want things cheep, regardless of what they actually cost society.

Almost every industry is environmentally unfriendly. almost by the definintion of industry.

IS the publishing industry, worse than others? or unnecessarily unfriendly for its given output? Both hard questions to which the answer is probably.

Can it do better. certainly. Are you preparedto pay for it?

Used books are certainly much more environmentally friendly. They have a major downside though - they provide no support to the author, hence no new books will be written if eeryone followed this strategy.

I can see books declining, as newer generations distain to actually read, but I can't see them being replaced.
I'm not sure that any wood alternative material would actually end up being environemtally "good" - they almost certainly would still need bleaching. They'd grow on and that could be used for food or prime forestry. They'd need pulping etc with all the energy and chemical costs entailed. Don't forget that books are CO2 sinks! hence not al bad.

As it is, I rarely buy new books, and mostly rely on libraries and used bookstores. That's more out of frugality than environmentalism, although those two causes often overlap.

Cradle to Cradle: remaking the way we make things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart is printed on a paper-like infinitely recyclable substance in order to support one of its arguments: that recycling paper isn't good enough, because its quality eventually degrades, so we need to seek out more effective and sustainable alternatives. That's the only book I've seen that was printed on that stuff.

I would be interested in finding out whether eBooks would feasably be more environmentally friendly than printed books, whether in a hypothetical future situation, or in a present-day ordinary situation. You need electricity to read an eBook, to begin with... but maybe that would be canceled out if your source of electricity was itself sustainable, such as solar power. Then there's the problem of whether the hardware is made of environmentally friendly materials.

I imagine that as demand for books printed on recycled paper noticeably increased, that supply will follow suit. Another alternative to e-books are audiobooks, which can be listened to over tape, CD, or iPod and are great for exercising and other monotonous activities. Same deal for electricity though, but really maybe we can focus on one industry at a time.

Joined the group to post the following (I'll stick around long enough to reply to any responses before going on my way):

True, audiobooks are an alternative -- but not for everyone. Part of this is because I tend to read a lot of history and biography, for which having a bibliography is usually a good thing. But part of this is just how I read, too -- I like having the option of pacing myself the way I want to, as opposed to the way a narrator wants to. (And audiobooks really aren't an option at all for reference books. Imagine an audio dictionary!)

I'll admit I've never tried e-books (though I would imagine they would solve the "pacing" issue I mentioned). But if they're anything like web pages, it would make reading much harder on my eyes. Not to mention you'd need either a computer or some other e-book reader, and with the former (if not the latter), you'd automatically dismiss the possibility of reading, say, in bed. Or on the subway. Or over lunch. (I do all three.)

Perhaps the best option, then, is trying to get people to want/look for recycled-paper books, and getting publishers to print them.

A real quandry here. Still, I think paper books have their place. In principle (from "en princip, oui," a French expression for "non" - I don't speak French, so don't quote me) the materials can be recycled. Besides, paper products don't last forever anyway.

ebooks and audiobooks also use resources at some level, so there is no way to have a book that has zero environmental impact.

I submit that wise use of the materials, whatever that might entail, is really the essential element.

For me listening is not reading. I like the act of reading. I like the feel of a book in my hand. I like reading a favored passage over and over again.

I'm certainly lobby for some alternative to paper. Surely there's something in the pipeline to use as a substitute for paper. "If we can put a man on the moon," we can keep a book in my hands.

yah I like holding the book in my hand. And I like used books better than new ones, I get most of mine from Alibris now, although the packaging and transport of my orders isn't good for anything.
Nothing will stop writers, I hope you can't stop creativity.. and well compared with the waste of just bottled water books seem like a lot less of a mark.

There are so many less drastic steps that we can take to save the worlds forests. Use fewer paper products, recycle all the paper that you can, buy paper products made from recycled paper, sign up to stop junk mail, sign up for paperless billing/bank statements etc, lobby publishers to use recycled paper, buy paper products and furniture that are only made with wood from renewable sources.
If everyone took even some of these steps we could prevent reaching the point where people have to choose between buying books and saving the world's forests.

Books last so long - I still have some that my parents read when *they were growing up. And books can be enjoyed by so many people as they are lent around. Let's focus on some of the shorter term paper cycles first.

i dont think i have bought a new book in many years, there is so much stuff already published and cheaper than new books.
however i would hate if things werent getting published because of this. but i also hate when they reprint an old classic that anyone could get in a used bookstore or offline used for cheaper.
so yes, i would not buy new books, but id still want people to be able to publish new things as long as they were aware of the environment while doing so

As I understand it, the world's forests are being cleared primarily to create agricultural land. The crops to be grown on the new land are sometimes food for people, sometimes grains for animals, and sometimes biomass to provide fuel for internal combustion engines. Trees killed in the process are often simply burned to clear the land in the shortest time with the least effort.

When trees are used to make paper, the paper goes mostly to offices, magazines, various sorts of printed advertising, and what I call utility publishing - short lived printed directories such as phone books, listings of HMO doctors and the like. I assume that packaging, newsprint and toilet paper is made largely from recycled materials, but some trees no doubt go directly to paper towels.

This leaves book printing, as a consumer of paper, on a level about the same as currency and lottery tickets. I don't have a specific source for the scale of consumption, and I don't even know where one would get reliable numbers. I admit using anecdotal observations as the basis for a best guess on the subject. However, if I am even close to right about the reasons for clearing old-growth forests and the scale of trees consumed to print books, it is clear that if everyone everywhere stopped buying newly printed books, it would not save the world's forests.

Even if deliberate policies to clear forests were magically stopped entire, climate change, with extreme droughts and flooding in the short term and slow shifting of average temperatures in the longer term is going to be hard on the primeval forests that remain.

As a first approximation, our purchase (or not) of newly printed books will fail to have any noticeable difference for the world's forests. I believe the better question is, will we learn anything from the books we do buy that will help us transform our society from a destructive and self-destructive enterprise into a sustainable one?

There' nothing wrong with used book stores or with freecycling or with public libraries. I've listed some of my books here so that other activists in my area can find out I have them, and they can borrow them from me instead of buying another copy. If the idea catches on in my local Transition group, maybe I'll borrow a book or two from one of them.

Art Myatt

On the topic of sustainability, each person's core collection is best represented in real books, not e-books. If you do not have an electricity line hookup, or if there is a power interruption (due to earthquake, etc.), it's better to have your key information resources in hard copy. There's also a more recently discovered problem with e-books, as reported in the June 29, 2012 Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html?m...

As the article title states, "Your E-Book is Reading You." In other words, information on what you are reading, how long you spend on each book section, what notes if any you are storing along the way, what parts you underline or re-read, is all being communicated back to the publishers, the authors, and presumably whoever else they want to share it with. I don't know about you, but that makes the room I am trying to read an E-Book in pretty crowded.

I rarely buy a used book. I like to buy used books, free kindle books and I am a weekly visitor at my local library.

Doesn't it really depend on how you use your books? If it changes the world in a positive way then, yes. If you do not respect and appreciate the things (real physical things) in this world then what is the point of it all.

Personally, the line of thinking that says "technology will save the planet" is beyond me.

We need science to solve the problems we wouldn't have if there were no science in the first place.

I can see where people would argue that e-books are more environmentally friendly than hardcopies.  I could fit all four of my bookshelves on that one, little device.  However, we need electricity to power the widgets, thus furthering our dependence on it.  Are we okay with that?

>17 justjukka:

Rozax has a good point.

I'd hate to think the amount of energy my iWhatever uses over my lifetime. It would probably be much greater than the energy and resources required to have my entire library. Trees, after all, are renewable when compared to the rare earth and other non-renewables it went into getting me the ebooks.

While I love my e-reader, I own it for the specific purpose of reading while not at home and reading PDF files when away from a computer. Other than that, I still prefer hard copies hands-down. Aside from enjoying the format of a real book, I highly value the fact that hard copies, once in my hand, are not dependent upon a vast infrastructure of power delivery, data access, and replacement parts as e-readers are. E-readers are useful tools, in my opinion, but they have specific functions and limitations that make them niche tools. Books remain the more enduring format in a world where energy and materials for electronics are becoming more scarce.

I do not care if the book publishing business is eco-unfriendly.
Some things are life sustaining, essential!
In any rate, I buy second hand books and send the dross to charity.
I enjoy my books and recycle.

Related images

Rozax,
Nice icons. Where did you find them? Or are they your own creation?

Either way I would like to use them for this group's image.

*argh* I should have hyperlinked.  They're not mine, but if you click "copy link location", it'll bring you to the original source. :)

I vote the middle one for the group's main image.  It's more subtle than the others.

I second that one.

Or would you stop buying luxury bog paper to save the world's forests?

Wiped out: America's love of luxury toilet paper is destroying Canadian forests (Guardian)

Major brands’ refusal to use sustainable materials is having a devastating impact on forests and climate, new report says

Hadn't noticed this thread before...

I see it was referred to in this post >21 justjukka:, but I was going to mention libraries. Those books get a lot of use.

That being said, I like my Kobo, but I do realize that the electricity from it is its own issue. Almost everything, it seems, if you try to make it more environmentally-friendly in one way, means it's not in another. Sadly, it seems to be the society we live in. :-(

That's not to say we should try to make things better. Of course we should. It just gets depressing sometimes when any option is, in some way, bad.

I was under the impression that a lot of the paper used for newsprint/books was actually from trees grown as a crop as distinct from being primordial forest. So it's almost like saying stop eating bread to save our wheat. And round here (Inverness Scotland) acres are devoted to growing Christmas trees which are cut down in their prime so people can stick their presents underneath and not fear that some primaeval forest is suffering loss.

It's all about sustainability. We can't live without using resources of all kinds, but we can take care that we do it in a sustainable way, not mindlessly. For publishing industry in particular, I've seen some boast they only buy paper from companies who have a sustainable forest policy, meaning there's a balance between cut and replanted trees. This makes me wonder how else can they stay in business. Are there paper companies who just keep obtaining and cutting new forests once the existing ones no longer have any resources to speak of? Sounds crazy as a business model, but crazier things have been known to exist.

The publishing industry is contending with a serious paper shortage right now (and has been for much of the past year), which may drive the price of books up purely because the paper to print them on is hard to get. It's a complex problem because paper largely comes from US and Canada, but printing is usually done overseas in Asia. So there was a scare about tariffs last year that really messed with the industry's ability to meet printing schedules.

And strangely enough, apparently one of the reasons for the paper shortage is that the pressure to meet our new wide-spread demand for non-plastic packaging has meant that paper mills can make more money supplying that market than it can by catering to the printing market:

https://www.inkondapaper.com/paper-for-books-is-getting-harder-to-come-by/

>26 LibraryCin: domestic electricity for a small item like an ereader is not the issue. You could quite easily run that on a sustainable source/tariff and probably be CO2 positive. A bigger issue is the mining and processing required for the electronics required to make it. A much much bigger issue is the electricity and cooling required to run the server farms that host/supply the content (and of course the rest of internet including LT).

>16 signature103: no science puts you firmly back in the stone age with no books either. Where would you rather be really?

>30 reading_fox: Ah, yes. Hadn't thought about that. Sigh... If it's not one thing, it's another.

To be honest, to charge my Kobo (or my tablet or mp3 player), I plug it into my PC when I have it running, anyway. On rare occasions, I need to charge them faster and will plug them directly into an outlet, but not often. I don't have a smartphone, and I rarely use my flip cell phone, so I don't need to charge it often, though for that, I do plug it in to an outlet.

I'm thinking we should enjoy our books and share, donate, or compost them when through.
(Son bought a huge book he wanted for 11 cents at Salvation Army store!)

Forests used for building or for books, especially for longterm, e.g., family Bible, take fixed CO2 out of the equation.
https://factcheck.afp.com/canadas-forests-do-not-absorb-more-co2-country-produce... (a taste of debate though not quite right, I think.)
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/statsprofile/carbon

Important, though, that forests are replanted or allowed to recover, since fast growing young trees sequester C in generating their biomass?
You can see that in seasonal cycle of CO2 in the atmosphere: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2521/why-is-there-a-seasonal-cy...

Fires release CO2 into atmosphere.

Fallen trees release C more gradually--much of it fixed in fungus, bugs, soil, etc.

Clearcutting releases N to water, so can cause algal blooms especially as waters warm:
https://www.ijc.org/en/sab/tracking-nutrient-sources-environmental-fingerprintin...
Somewhere, there's an interesting study of N release as the first Europeans felled trees in Ohio, and subsequent change in water quality (as measured by bug parts in sediment cores).

The Great Dying of Native Americans as a result of Euro diseases changed land use and sequestered CO2, perhaps causing The Little Ice Age.

I seem to recall that seven trees capture emissions of one car(?) Never hurts to plant trees!

>32 margd: Never hurts to plant trees!

We've planted several hundred on our land during the last year, although there's no guarantee that they will all survive, especially if the rains don't come soon. I'll be planting a few more in the coming days, in anticipation of rain.

>32 margd: I live in a city, so can't plant too many! But, when I bought my house a few years ago, there were 0 trees on my lot!!!

I looked for native trees to plant and asked the City to plant one on their portion of the land, so I now have 4 aspens and 1 mountain ash. I have also since had a friend want to get rid of two tiny evergreens that just started sprouting in her yard, so she gave them to me and I've put them in the back yard.

The aspens are doing well, as is the mountain ash. The evergreens were just planted last year, so I hope they'll be ok! I will continue to water them all this summer and probably into next.

I called our place in the country Sunstroke Acres (~3) when we first moved here 30 years ago! DH planted what seemed like hundreds of evergreen seedlings, but mice took most of them... He moved the survivors around and it's amazing that today he's hard-pressed to find places to plant his nut seedlings, his latest passion. I have two small spruce that yearn to be free after service as Christmas trees, but I think they'll have to settle for understory planting. Hope they make it!

Back to bog paper, I'm afraid (see>25 John5918:)

Toilet paper is getting less sustainable, researchers warn (Guardian)

Major brands are using less recycled paper, meaning more trees cut down unnecessarily

Johnthefireman, yeah, paper products keep getting tweaked. My family and I have been buying toilet paper from small companies that still use mostly or all recycled paper. The major manufacturers of toilet paper are mostly owned by the Koch brothers, so I never buy anything from those companies.

To answer the original question - NO!

But I do use recycled TP, and plant or try to save trees when possible. I do wish the TP didn't come wrapped in plastic, though.