Some evidence suggests e-readers (like the Amazon Kindle below) are better than both print and online reading when it comes to environmental impact. This article is reprinted from the Center for American Progress’s “It’s Easy Being Green” series.
With the proliferation of e-book readers and online news, it seems an appropriate time to ask: What’s greenest way to read?
In short: we’re not sure, and it depends. Some evidence points to e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader, as better than both print and online reading. These devices allow you to download books and view them on a sharp-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. But the most effective tool for comparing all the alternatives is a Life Cycle Analysis, which takes into account the environmental impacts of each reading method from production to transportation to waste. Several such analyses have been performed with varying conclusions.
Each option’s environmental impact is concentrated in a different place. The biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the book industry is from paper production, accounting for almost 70 percent of the industry’s emissions. For e-book readers, the most carbon-intensive step is production of the device itself. The greatest impact of reading online is the energy that it takes to power the computer while reading.
The Book Industry Study Group released a report with the Green Press Initiative last year estimating that the publishing industry “produced a carbon dioxide equivalent net emission of about 12.4 million tons in 2006, and a net emission of 8.85 pounds per book sold to consumers,” an amount that’s not unusual for manufactured products. Each year, according to the Green Press Initiative, over 30 million trees are used to make books in the United States alone, while the newspaper industry consumed 8.7 million metric tons of paper last year.
One study out of Sweden–and broken down by Matthew McDermott at Treehugger–indicated that print and online newspapers could be comparable in their emissions, depending on the source of power used to power the computers, how far trees have to travel to the paper plants, how far paper has to travel from plant to printer, how long you read the paper, and a host of other factors.
Greg Kozak’s master’s thesis in the pre-Kindle days of 2003 concluded that books are responsible for four times the greenhouse gas emissions as e-readers, owing in large part to paper production, electricity use, and personal transportation. And a study by two Berkeley students found that paper newspapers released 32-140 times more CO2 and 26-185 times the amount of water as newspapers read on PDA devices.
Lifecycle analyses like these also have a hard time taking into account larger social costs of production, such as devastating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo caused largely by the trade in precious metals used to make electronics or land rights disputes between paper plantation owners and indigenous people in Brazil.
If you’re not sold on e-book readers (and their high price tags), there are other ways to be a greener reader. Hopping on your bike and pedaling to the local library reduces both your personal transportation impact and is a much more eco-friendly way to read a book than buying it brand new since it avoids all the costs associated with publishing and transporting them. Your local second-hand bookseller is also a good choice for finding reused goods, and websites like swaptree.com let you trade your used items with other users and keep more trash out of landfills. Schools, nursing homes, gyms, or shelters may also accept donations of old magazines
Recycling is also taking hold in the publishing industry. The Green Press Initiative works with publishers of books and newspapers to improve environmental practices, and many of them are making progress. The current industry average use of post-consumer waste recycled paper is around 5 percent, although Random House has committed to using 30 percent recycled paper in its book production by 2010. Other publishers, such as Simon & Schuster, are beginning to set targets, too, and some, such as Hyperion, have adopted environmental practices, such as using soy-based ink.
If you decide to buy an e-reader, minimize its environmental impact by using it for as long as possible and recycling it at the end of its life.
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I personally love e-books but hate dedicated e-book readers. They seem expensive, bulky and well, they miss the point. They try too hard to be like paper books which is to confuse the medium for the message.
Instead I’ve used PDAs or even cell phones and loaded e-books on them. The Apple iPhone now has several great programs which will let you read books on your phone. The resolution isn’t as good as paper and all that jazz, but so what, they’re more than good enough. They’re small, convenient and better still, you will have them with you wherever you go. Got a few minutes at lunch, in a lineup or on a bus/train? Catch up with a couple dozen pages of your book. I quickly forgot I was reading on a phone or PDA and got lost in the book and after a month I found I had read an extra three books just in these lost minutes.
I think the Kindle is interesting but it looks too much like someone trying to design a CD player or cassette deck the same size and shape of a record player to lure new buyers. It totally misses the point. People converted to cassette tapes because they were small, convenient, easy to carry and didn’t skip. The sound was worse, the art work looked bad, they didn’t make nice collections and no one “loved” them, but people used them in droves because they could listen to their music anywhere. So forget the dedicated e-book reader. What makes books great isn’t the shape, the resolution or the sharpness, it’s the content and you get all that in a tiny package you already have in your pocket when you load it onto your iPhone :)
(Plus, no additional environmental impact!)
Audiobooks! … there is no way most people can spring $350 for a Kindle or similar reader. And has anyone done a study on what they do to your eyes? I would love to save trees but not at the expsense of my bank account and my eyesight.
Audiobooks are cheap and you can listen to them anywhere. No expensive device needed, including an Apple iPhone.
But if anyone uses Audible for audiobooks you have probably noticed that they have a weird shortage of environmental and climate change books.
Well perhaps this is “elitist”, but my greenest way to read is to take my bicycle or walk to the local library. Was that so hard?
The PDA/mobile option sounds a lot better than the dedicated e-book readers. Once you’ve splashed out on one of the readers (which is about 2-400 pounds locally), you’ve then got to spend the same amount as buying a normal book.
For instance, I’ve just checked with the website of a UK bookseller, and the cost of an ebook version of a best-selling celeb bio is about 15% more as an ebook than it is as a hardback in the same store. Now, there are cheaper books around, with Obamas ‘Dreams From My Father’ coming in slightly cheaper than the paperback. But since the store has the paperback as part of a ‘buy one, get one free’ offer, its not such a good offer after all.
Now there are advantages to the reader, of not having to hump around a huge pile of books, it could be a real help for cheap publishing and if you buy the Sony reader you get a hundred classics free anyway (and there are many freebies available) , but there are a lot of downsides too. We have to spend a lot of money buying the equipment, and then about the same amount on an ebook as we would a normal book – even though the publisher/distributor have basically zero costs. And of course we can’t pass the ebook onto someone else when we’ve finished with it – even if we had the rights, what about software compatability? (even with the same manufacturer – think of Microsoft).
There are other downsides, such as what happens if it gets stolen or breaks? And will older or particularly obscure books be available? What happens when it reaches the end of its life – can you recycle it?
I can see the advantage if your going on a long trip, or your on fieldwork somewhere (very useful to read up on what you’ve excavated!), and there will be lots of people who want to read books, magazines, etc, without carrying them around with them, but I’m not entirely convinced.
You can go into a second-hand/charity shop and buy a paperback for pennies. If you don’t like it, you can give it back to the shop, throw it away, give it to someone else or sell it. None of those things are possible with ebooks. We also like to physically own things. In theory, instant downloads/streaming, etc should be killing off DVD’s, yet we continue to buy boxsets, and even the CD isn’t dead yet. Books look nice on the shelf, ebooks don’t.
Overall, I’m with Clifford Stoll http://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Snake-Oil-Thoughts-Information/dp/0385419945 – real books can be read in the bath (and it doesn’t really matter if you drop them in), don’t need batteries or recharging, don’t have software problems, don’t break if you drop them, are understandable by anyone who can read and will still be readable in 30 years time. A perfect technology. And, if you keep your books for a while, very green. Even better if you get them from a library.
Ebooks are going to be great for lots of people, but lets think in terms of appropriate technology. Print isn’t dead. In fact there will probably be a book out soon on helping you get the most from your ebook….
I’m for the paper printed book myself because the figures given for comparison seem to be for a book being read once. If there are multiple readers that ought to make the paper version come out better. Plus I like the decentralization of paper publishing.
For instance if we buy all books from Amazon and rent all our movies from Netflix, these guys will determine which books get published and what movies get made.
In my little town used hardbacks even in excellent condition are all $1 and paperbacks 25 or 50 cents. The library book sale charges more for hardbacks and trade paperbacks and of course the library is FREE.
I haven been rounding up used books in good condition and mailing them to deployed troops through Books For Soldiers (in spite of my opposition to our wars/empire etc.) and those books are frequently going through multiple readers so their lifecycle impact ought to be pretty low.
I have nothing against electronic book readers per se but I’d like to keep the paper version as the primary medium, not just as a personal preference but because the whole point of a printed book is once its out there its impossible to totally suppress or alter it. (For better or worse.)
I try to reduce the paper using in my daily work. For example, I reduce the size of the paper when I need it. Smaller size is enough to do your woork I think.
Unfortunately, not all of us enjoy libraries with extensive collections. Now if you want a good romance or a murder mystery, the local library has it, but if you want a book on climate change or permaculture, you’ll have to order it. Even the local book stores don’t carry much of a selection, and the used book stores even less!
I don’t think print books will ever go out of style, but e-readers seem to be a great way to get current books not readily available. I wonder if there is any way to make them with recycled computer chips?
Myself – and I have to admit, this is helped along by lack of personal wealth (always a good incentive for reuse and so on), I was brought up going to charity shops to buy second hand books. I don’t think it was my Mum that showed me, bnut I swiftly learned to channel my shop-surfing instinct toward the bricabrac interiors of Oxfam and Hospice shops, where my pocket money went a lot further.
We now live in a relatively skint area of a large city, we have a dedicated charity book and video store on our doorstep – as well as a library. Nearly all the kids books come from there (and are remarkably eclectic as a result), as well as it being an incredibly useful repository of cheap VHS’s of childrens animation / Disney films etc for 50p (what’s that, about 75 cents?).
So as well as extending the usable life of books, we’ve found that not throwing away the old tech has been an excellent idea since having kids.
Best find so far book wise, a coffee table book of “Mountains from Space”, which allowed me to explain basic plate tectonics to my 5 year old. It would never have occurred to me to look up and buy from Amazon, obviously (and would have probably cost about $50 new so forget it).
Second hand books FTW, book readers… they’ll break, you’ll get all gadgety and buy another, and another… all seems a bit of a pointless waste of time to me. What I want is a decent non-proprietory ebook reader for mobiles, then Bob’s your Uncle.
Apologies for excessive use of UK slang ;)
There are other downsides, such as what happens if it gets stolen or breaks? And will older or particularly obscure books be available? What happens when it reaches the end of its life – can you recycle it?
So as well as extending the usable life of books, we’ve found that not throwing away the old tech has been an excellent idea since having kids.
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I try to reduce the paper using in my daily work. For example, I reduce the size of the paper when I need it. Smaller size is enough to do your woork I think.