Comments on: Ebooks save millions of trees

By: Michael Pastore

Michael Pastore — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:35:05 +0000

David Crotty: is it possible that your comment was made without reading the original article, and based only on the TeleRead snippet? … Not a very balanced comment.

The orginal article says:

(Note: At this time we are not examining the environmental impact of dedicated ebook reading devices. Most people now are reading ebooks on their desktop or laptop computers, or on iPhones, iPod touches, or mobile devices that they already own.)

If you can provide that information — specific details about the environmental impact of the Kindle — then please do send it to me, for inclusion in a future article.

Amazon claims to have sold 500,000 Kindles. There is no reason for them to lie, but no way to verify that statement. Nevertheless, there have been 100 times as many iPhones and iPod touches sold: about 50 million.

For now — and by a factor of more than 100 times — most ebooks are being read on personal computers and mobile devices that are already owned. This creates little or no additional environmental impact.

Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:18:48 +0000

Paper is, in fact, only recyclable for a few generations, effectively less than five. Whereas a single Kindle can replace hundreds of books. There’s the difference in your environmental footprint: A single Kindle versus not a single book, or even five, but a library of books. And a Kindle can be recycled, too… it doesn’t have to be landfilled.

Read up sometime on the toxic chemicals used to make (and recycle) paper, most of which end up being dumped into the nearest river or lake. Not to mention an incredible amount of electricity to run the plants themselves, and the materials and lubricants involved in that heavy machinery. Paper isn’t just cut off the side of a tree… it is a dirty production business.

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:38:20 +0000

No mention of the environmental footprint of manufacturing the Kindle? The toxic chemicals used to manufacture it, and that it contains? The chemical battery? That paper is recyclable, whereas the Kindle will sit for an eternity in a landfill when it’s disposed of? Not a very balanced analysis.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:56:30 +0000

Considering a printed book’s future as relevant to the overall impact is actually a bad idea, when you consider that those aspects are artificially established, not inherent to the object itself. If it was considered illegal to trade or resell printed books, as it is often with e-books, the point would be gone. An e-book is also capable of being traded or resold, if it is so desired. And of course, e-books can be deleted (saving it from being landfilled or burned).

People download free content on a whim… because it’s free, a financial benefit. Not because there are any environmental cost savings involved. This is about the environmental benefit of an e-book versus a printed book.

The economy your points support is not environmental economy, but financial economy… but it’s not always about money. Your points also primarily emphasize the downsides of print. I don’t see where any mistake is being made here.

By: Spider Mattheson

Spider Mattheson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:13:57 +0000

These numbers make the same mistake that music and publishing companies make, which is to attribute a lost sale to every download. Most people realize that this is not the case. People don’t mind downloading free content on a whim. Purchasing a physical paper book is different. It takes up space and money and you can’t delete it if you don’t like it. At best, you can resell it at a loss.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:35:18 +0000

Further useful information comes from Greg Kozak, who did his thesis on this subject in 2003. The most important points:

Environmental burdens associated with electronic book storage (i.e. server storage) are small when compared to the physical storage of books (i.e. bookstore).
E-readers eliminate personal transportation-related burdens since they allow for instant accessibility to digitized texts (i.e. anywhere there is Internet access).
E-readers are more compact and are less material intensive than the equivalent number of printed books.
Although the most significant contributor to the e-reader’s life-cycle assessment results, electricity generation for e-reader use had less of an environmental impact than did paper production for the conventional book system.

Other info can be found at the Read an E-Book Week website. This, to me, is probably the most important reason to embrace e-books, and something we should be passing along to everyone.