In celebration of National Library Week (April 19th-25th), we’re going to chat about some books!

The Two Ways We Read

While audiobooks are gaining some traction, the majority of our book consumption takes place through traditional book reading and e-readers. Publishing in the US is still doing pretty solid. According to the Association of American Publishers, the publishing field made almost $26 billion in 2018. However, this number does cover all publishing fields. When broken down, traditional print takes up $22.6 billion and e-books hold just $2.04 billion!

It might come as a surprise that e-books aren’t holding onto more of the market. In other fields, like news and music, the digital industry is kind of overwhelming. These industries have had to revamp to keep up with the ever-changing digital demand. Books, on the other hand, just haven’t been impacted in the same manner.

Why aren’t people reading e-books?

E-books are not the preference for a few different reasons!

Some professionals in the publishing field believe that people who are really into books think of them as more of a collection. It also depends on what books people are reading. The Nielsen Book International found that the main genres printed are nature, cooking, and children’s books. There are also some authors who don’t want to have their books available as e-books. J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, famously was opposed to having digital copies. Salinger’s books did become available after his death, though, when the person in control of his accounts received a letter from a disabled fan who would benefit from the use of an e-reader.

Part of it is also age! Younger people tend to flock toward physical books. According to the Pew Research Center, 75% of people in the US between 18 and 29 said they had read a physical book in 2017. This number is compared to the total average of 67%. This is similar in the United Kingdom, where 63% of all print book sales are to people under 44.

So which way of reading is more environmentally friendly?

The best way to decide which reading method you prefer is to look at the entire life cycle for both options.

1. Materials

E-readers can make getting a holistic understanding kind of tricky. This is mostly because the manufacturing process is not available as public information and we don’t know what materials are required. However, on average, a single e-reader requires extracting 33 pounds of minerals. These minerals often include exotic metals which often contribute to political tensions in countries where they are extracted.

Image from: The Guardian featuring Cobalt Miners

Books are not without fault in the material realm either! To construct books, we have to have trees. The production of 1 ton of paper requires around 17 trees. These trees are most often pulpwood that is grown specifically for paper-making. On average, one pulpwood is capable of producing around 100 books.

While cutting down trees is often seen as counterproductive, there are some positives! As they grow, trees capture carbon dioxide. Pulpwood trees are harvested once they hit 25 years in age. This means that they’ve spent 25 years capturing carbon dioxide – roughly 55 pounds of carbon dioxide per year per tree! What’s even cooler is that when the tree is made into paper, the paper continues to hold onto a good portion of this collected carbon dioxide. So, in the end, it’s not released back into the environment.

2. Manufacturing

However, we do know that e-readers are made of labor-intensive and less renewable materials (less renewable compared to trees). A New York Times study found that e-readers require the extraction of 33 pounds of material, 79 gallons of water, and 100-kilowatt hours of fossil fuels. Overall, this equates to 66 pounds of carbon dioxide.

There are some negative health impacts in the manufacturing of e-readers and traditional print books! The main health concern is particulate emissions (think tiny, tiny particles). These come from things like nitrogen and sulfur oxides. Particulate emissions travel into our lungs, often making existing conditions like asthma way worse. They can also cause chronic coughing and even increase our risk of premature death. When it comes to e-readers, the negative health effects from manufacturing just one e-reader are estimated to be 10x greater than the negative health effects of manufacturing a single book.

3. Transportation

Transporting our goods takes a massive toll on our environment! We have increasingly become acclimated to expedited delivery. When we want things, it’s safe to say that we want them fast! Transportation is pretty much the same across the board.

For more information on the environmental impact of expedited shipping, check out this informative video produced by Vox!

4. When you read!

When you read can either offset or drive up the environmental impact of the book! If you read during the day, using natural light, the book is better than an e-reader. However, if you read at night for at least an hour with a light bulb, you’d be utilizing more energy than it would take to fully charge an e-reader.

5. Product disposal

The disposal, like manufacturing, is what separates e-readers from books in terms of environmentalism.

E-readers, when thrown away, create what is known as electronic waste, or e-waste. Over time, we’ve begun to see an increase in our electronics consumption. As such, our e-waste has grown larger. Over the last nine years, we’ve doubled our amount of e-waste worldwide!

The health risks associated with e-waste can come from direct contact with the harmful materials used in the manufacturing and production (i.e. lead, cadmium, chromium, etc.), from breathing in the toxic fumes that are released in the manufacturing process, as well as from the accumulation of chemicals that end up in the soil, water, and food. Even the electronics that we send off to get “recycled” can have negative impacts on those that are forced to handle the machinery.

Children are the ones who will face the biggest brute from e-waste. This is because children are still growing! Children are primarily exposed to e-waste because of unsafe recycling practices that are conducted in their homes or even by the children themselves. But children can also be exposed to e-waste chemicals by having dumpsites near their homes, their play sites, and even their schools.

According to the World Health Organization, there are international initiatives that are focusing on managing global electronic waste.

Book disposal is a lot easier and sometimes a lot cooler! As always, we can toss our books in the garbage and just have them sent to the landfill. However, there are some more environmentally friendly options!

· Donate your used books to your local library

· Start a Little Free Library

· Use your books to help fund literary initiatives through organizations like Better World Books

· You can send them off to inmates through programs like LGBT Books to Prisoners

· Utilize Books for Africa to send them to Africa book deserts

Alternatively, you can just plain ole recycle them! One ton of recycled paper saves 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 380 gallons of oil, 17 trees, 4,000 kilowatts of energy, and 7,000 gallons of water! Paper can only be recycled down – so books turn into things like coffee filters or egg cartons. It should also be noted that paperback books can be recycled as is but hardcover books should be stripped of their covers because the covers are made of non-paper components!

Are there any positives?

Absolutely!

Both print and digital industries are doing more to be conscious producers. As far as books go, more printed books are using soy-based inks rather than the alternative of petroleum-based ink. We’re also seeing an increase in books that are printed using recycled paper! There are even well-managed pulp mills that emphasize on not using chemicals like chlorine to whiten the paper. The electronic industry is beginning to implement better working conditions, partly through the decline in the use of toxic chemicals, thereby decreasing the risk associated with electronic manufacturing. We’re also seeing heightened care for employee safety throughout the entire supply chain!

However, the New York Times study makes note that the more ecological option is to just walk to our local public library! For information on Knox County Public Libraries, go here!