Edit: Ooh, controversy! Quite a bit of discussion is happening in the comments. They’re worth a read. Here is the original post proper:
I was reading the Phenix & Phenix blog and, some ways down the page, I found a very interesting interview held with Raz Godelnik, the founder of Eco-Libris. I had never heard of this company, but it’s definitely an interesting concept.
Here are the vital statistics:
- Most new books are made of less than 10% recycled content
- In the United States alone, about 20 million trees (yes: 20,000,000) are cut down every year to produce new paper for books
- Less than 1% of book publishers in the US have made a commitment to increase the recycled content of their books to at least 30%.
That’s crazy. And while (at least where I live) forestry companies are legally required to replant after harvesting trees, most of what goes back into the ground are mono-cultures. Those aren’t good. This whole situation is not so much good.
What can be done? Obviously the biggest thing would be for all publishers to commit to using more (or only!) recycled paper in their books. That may take a long time to happen. In the mean time, Eco-Libris is here to help.
The idea is simple. You can visit Eco-Libris and pay a certain amount of money (the amount is up to you) and for every dollar you donate, one-point-three trees will be planted by reputable companies in various developing nations where deforestation is a crucial problem. (So if you donate $10, 13 trees will then be planted, thus “balancing out” thirteen books). Surely I don’t have to explain how beneficial this is for the communities in which the trees are being planted, as well as for the world in general.
Trees are good. And while it may be beyond your means to balance out all of the books you own — I’ve got about 400 books in my room and right now my incomstances definitely won’t permit that great an expense — certainly every little bit helps. And Eco-Libris’s vision is to balance out 500,000 books by the end of this year. Check out theire and FAQ for more information.
What else can you do to minimize the environmental impact of your reading?
- Frequent used bookstores
- Take full advantage of your local library
- Write to publishers and encourage them to use recycled paper
- Patronize publishers who do used recycled content in their books, and perhaps drop them a line to tell them so
- Use neat things like BookMooch and BookCrossing to give and get used books
Huzzah for green reading.
How can you tell which publishers use recycled paper? Or more than 10%? I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anywhere on a book a note telling me how much recycled paper was included.
Two ways:
1) Look on the page with the publication details. Some books will tell you if they’re printed on recycled paper For example, my new copy of Green for Life, by Gillian Deacon, says that “This book was printed on 100% PCW recycled paper” (PCW = post-consumer waste).
2) Check the list of signatories to the Green Press Initiative’s Treatise on Responsible Paper Use (see http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/treatise/treatiseIndex.htm) . Some of the larger and more recent signatories are Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Scholastic Press.
Unlike Canada (and apart from Alaska), the United States has virtually no old growth forest left and we haven’t since the 1920s. What we do have of it isn’t being used by the paper industry. (I think all of it is on U.S. government land and protected by the National Forest Service.) The U.S. has gained forest over the last 90 years after hitting its low in the 1920s. (That was when use of farmland reached its peak. Since then, despite population growth, farmland and pasture has declined, reverting back to forest.)
I’m not saying this is a bad idea, though. Your proposed solution is to pay for reforestation in developing countries where reforestation is not common. Most of the paper in your books is probably from the U.S. and Canada, though, so you really shouldn’t feel nearly as much guilt about this as you apparently are. The loss of old growth forest in the U.S. happened a long, long time ago and there’s nothing that can be done about it now. Given that has already occurred and given that reforestation is taking place (and it is), whether the paper is recycled or not doesn’t make much difference.
Andrew — don’t mistake concern for guilt! I think that environmental initiatives such as this are both responsible and sensible. I’m not wracked with guilt over the books I own or the paper that they were made from — but I do believe that using recycled paper is an obvious good thing. It means less waste in dumps, and more trees being left to grow (trees being not just marvelous to be around in general, but also oxygen-producers, carbon-sinks, etc.).
It is true that most old-growth forests have long since disappeared . . . but why not give the reforested ones a chance to grow into “old-growth” status?
Christine,
Thank you very much for your post. I definitely believe that with the support of eco-conscious readers such as yourself and others we’ll be able to move the industry forward and green it up. Just a small note – we plant with our planting partners 1.3 trees for every tree paid for, so for example when you pay for balancing out 10 books by planting 10 trees, we’ll plant 13 trees to make sure at least 10 trees will reach maturity.
I would like also to address Andrew’s comment: Firstly, the paper that is used for the book industry comes from a variety of areas: The U.S., Canada, Indonesia, Northern Europe, Brazil, Chile, etc. In many of these places, book paper fiber is procured from areas of Endangered or High Conservation Value Forests that are not yet protected.
You can find a lot of information about it on the Green Press Initiative’s website – http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/impacts/forests.htm. Here’s just one example regarding Canada (quote from the site): “It is estimated that 2.5 million acres of the Canadian Boreal Forest are logged each year, and that 65% of the cut is specifically for paper products such as books, newsprint, magazines, catalogs, copy paper and tissue products. Eighty percent of paper produced in the region is destined for U.S. markets.”
And the environmental impacts of the book industry are also a current problem for U.S. forests as well – here’s another quote from the site: “In the Southeast U.S., highly diverse forests are being converted into single-species tree farms at an alarming rate. Already 15% of southern forests (32 million acres) consist of plantations. As the source of one quarter of all paper, the southeast U.S. is the largest paper producing region in the world. The paper industry logs an estimated 6 million acres in the region each year, and book paper is one of the top 10 paper products that are derived from this region accounting for 6-10% of regional paper production.”
Eco-Libris is planting the trees with its planting partners – three highly respected U.S. and U.K. registered non-profit organizations that work in collaboration with local communities in developing countries.These trees are planted in high ecological and sustainable standards in Latin America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Belize, and Honduras) and Africa (Malawi) where deforestation is a crucial problem. Planting trees in these places not only helps to fight climate change and conserve soil and water, but also benefits many local people, for whom these trees offer many benefits, such as improvement of crops and additional food and income, and an opportunity for a better future.
If anyone is interested in more information, please feel free to email me at raz[at]ecolibris[dot]net.
Thanks again,
Raz Godelnik
Eco-Libris
But Eco-Libris itself is not a non-profit, isn’t it? It’s a for-profit, as far as I gather. The company gives the impression that it is a non-profit by association (which is not true). There are genuine non-profits that cut out the middle-man and go straight to the good stuff. For example, http://www.arborday.org/
There’s an LT thread and a discussion between Eylon from Eco-Libris and LT members that hopefully clarifies things: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=29044
I do believe that using recycled paper is an obvious good thing. It means less waste in dumps, and more trees being left to grow (trees being not just marvelous to be around in general, but also oxygen-producers, carbon-sinks, etc.).
We should be careful about what is obvious and what is not. Recycling is not obviously better. It is necessary to determine how much energy is used in the recycling process compared to how much is used in creating from scratch. E.g. there is no question that recycling aluminum cans is extremely efficient, using far less energy than producing it from bauxite. There is also no question that recycling many types of plastic is not efficient, requiring far more energy than simply using virgin resin. It does appear to be the case that recycling paper does indeed save energy, so I am certainly willing to concede that recycling paper seems to be a good thing. It used to be the case that the main disadvantage of recycled paper was the inferior quality. However, great strides have been made in this regard and that’s no longer true. Now, the biggest problem is that there is a limit to the amount of times paper fibers can be recycled (about 4-6 times), so there will always be a need for virgin paper. (A strong argument can be made that very little virgin paper ought to go into books, since it is one of the least likely paper products to be recycled.)
I do stand corrected by Mr. Godelnik. While about two-thirds of the paper used in the United States is produced here, we do also import paper from a number of other countries as well. This certainly is an argument for more concern about paper usage. The argument about forests in the southeast isn’t terribly interesting. It does include the word “alarming,” but nothing that it actually says seems terribly significant, except that most tree-farming for paper production is done in that part of the country.