Filling out the Problem Space: PaperPaperPaper
Since I’m addressing the physical aspects of books, it’s time to talk about paper.
Let us not forget that the familiar musky smell we love, and the gentle tooth of paper comes from trees.
Here are some basic facts that I scoured from the Green Press Initiative in their report The State of the Paper Industry.
- 42% of the industrial wood harvest is used to make paper
- If paper is landfilled rather than recycled, it decomposes and produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 23 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.
- one-third of municipal solid waste is paper, and municipal landfills account for 34 percent of human related methane emissions to the atmosphere
- If, for example, the United States cut its office paper use by roughly 10 percent, or 540,000 tons, greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 1.6 million tons. This is the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road for a year.
- in 2003, only 48.3 percent of office paper was recovered for recycling.
All good things to keep in mind. However, let’s note that the end use of Books is on the lower end of paper consumption overall.
But of those books printed, very paperpulp is from recycled fibers.
Indicator: Percentage of recycled content in printing and writing paperThe printing and writing sector accounts for 27% of paper production in the United States, yet less than 6 percent of its fiber comes from recycled sources. More than 90% of the total quantity of printing and writing papers is still made from 100% virgin forest fibers.
Quick Conclusions
1. Print on recycled paper.
It’s already been proven that recycled paper can be as Bright as virgin pulp, which is a concern of the publishing industry, as they’re manufacturing a product to certain specificities.
2. Print Fewer Books
With a little research today, I realized that books truly are a commodity. The bookstores request a certain number to fill their inventory, and send back what they don’t need. Those extras go to sit in a warehouse until they need to be shipped out again to fill stock. In the event that those books never sell, they are often shredded onsite and then sent to recycling.
> Print On Demand
> Print Shorter Runs
Bigger Systemic Conclusions
So book printing may not be the largest cause of deforestation, but with the strain on the environment and the push to ebooks, it looks like there will be fewer paper books in our future. (Let’s not touch the eco-ness of the ereader. I’ve done LCAs on household products and it ain’t pretty.)
» What if bookstores were more like libraries?
We go there to test-drive the content, to see if the pictures are good enough, to see if the price is worth the content.. And then many go home and buy it online through a dealer of used books, or onto their kindle. There’s a lot that can be done with this system, but my first inclination is that stores need to stock less. If they had one copy of each book (like the library?), then customers could browse, enjoy in store, and then get the digital version for home. Just like listening in the record store and then buying the album online. We want the preview.
