TV & Internet...
Green Tech Aug 29, 2008
Books vs. eBooks: Which Are Greener?
Amazon.com has sold nearly 300,000 of its Kindle eBook readers since it introduced the device earlier this year. Rumors of a Kindle 2.0 release before year-end have been squashed, but that doesn't mean that the interest in electronic books is fading. If anything, it continues to grow and hit new markets.
But is an eBook really greener than a regular, paper book?
Let's examine some of the issues:
Books are printed on paper. Paper requires trees and extensive chemical processing. But paper can be recycled, and a paper book can be read more than once, by more than one person. The more times a book is read, the "greener" it becomes. (Libraries, gotta love 'em!)
Books are heavy. Paper weighs a lot, especially if we're talking about hardcover books, books printed on glossy paper (say, graphic novels), textbooks, etc. The more a book weighs, the more expensive (and less green) it is to deliver it to a retailer or to your mailbox.
eBooks need energy. Every time you read an electronic book, you need to use some electricity. This need will be minimized as electronic paper technologies improve, but no matter what, you can't search for, buy, deliver or read an eBook without the "e."
eBooks have no resale value. Once you've read a paper book, you can keep it, discard it or sell it. Some used books are barely worth 25 cents; others can become collectors' items and be worth a fair amount of change. Any time an object can be re-used or re-sold, it is greener than something that can not.
eBooks = eWaste. eBook reader technologies are still developing. Early adopters are going to end up trading in their devices for new ones, and that creates the possibility that the old devices will just create electronic waste.
What's the bottom line? It's still a decision that should be made by the individual reader. If you read books more than once, collect them, trade them, or just enjoy the feel of a paper book in your hand, traditional books are still the way to go. But if you read books once, don't want to worry about disposing of them, read a lot for business or school, and want to avoid shipping costs (include greenhouse gases), then an eBook reader might be the best thing ever.
P-books
| organicboy | Sep 5th, 2008It's impossible to say definitely which is greener, there's just not enough hard evidence out there.
I've made a guesstimate though and come down in favour of p-books. My article and explaination is here:
http://tinyurl.com/6zkh7q
Oversimplification
| elizabeth_burton | Aug 29th, 2008If only the comparison were that simple.
First, no one says you can't resell an ebook, or give it away or do anything else you would with a print book, as long as you immediately delete it from your own computers. I share my ebook library with my husband regularly, because it's stored online with the vendor. So, I'm not violating copyright by making a copy.
Most devoted ebook readers use handheld devices, which work with rechargeable batteries. Unless you have actual data comparing the amount of energy used by said devices compared to sitting with a print book running a lamp (unless, of course, you restrict your reading to daylight hours) that particular item has no validity.
Do those devices need to be replaced from time to time? Of course, they do. On the other hand, that would be the case whether they were used to read ebooks or not. Even dedicated ebook readers like Kindle offer other functions, so that argument is a little specious as well. Maybe there are a few gadget addicts who have to replace their toy when a new version comes out but they're a minority.
The fact of the matter is that ebooks haven't had sufficient chops to deserve having any actual studies done to determine whether they have a positive, negative or neutral environmental impact, and until that's done anything said on the matter is speculation.
Print books, on the other hand, as you've noted, use paper and chemicals. They also have to be shipped in trucks and planes and ships. And they are, in the traditional business model, shipped "on loan." A bookseller can order as many or as few as they wish, keep them for a month or six then pack them up and ship them back.
Only they don't usually go back to the place they were shipped from. They go to a receiving warehouse, where they're sorted. Then the ones good enough to be sold are shipped again to the shipping warehouse...and the cycle begins again.
An inventory-free publisher who agrees to accept this silliness is usually given two options. They can let the books be destroyed, or they can pay to have them shipped to them. Except it's not the original return that gets returned; the printer does a completely new copy...and trashes the original.
Traditionally published books in hardcover or trade paperback may eventually be sold to "remainder houses," which are companies that buy unwanted books for pennies on the dollar then sell them cheaply. Mass market paperbacks, on the other hand, aren't returned. The bookseller tears off the front cover of each unwanted book and sends that in for their credit. The books go to the landfill, because it's illegal to sell them once the covers are gone. They even say so in the books.
Getting the picture?