I’m an avid reader and a tree hugger but I’m troubled that one past time leads to the demise of the other.
It’s that time of the year again, when we are reminded to turn off our lights and ruminate on our impact on planet earth. That was exactly what I did not do because I started online shopping… for books.
Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of books. From epic fantasies to gripping thrillers, these pages of content helped me escape to other worlds and unpuzzle baffling mysteries, like How to Make a Plant Love You. (Yes, I’ve jumped on the green train too.)
I’d like to think that reading physical books is the most eco-friendly hobby - after all it doesn’t need electricity - all you need is a chair and well, a book. But as the `books pile up in my room, I found myself Marie Kondoing my shelves to make space for newer reads. And the stacks of books? Well, I would have thrown them, were it not for the fact that -
Printing books is environmentally expensive. It takes roughly 24 trees to make about 200,000 sheets of paper. A study in 2012 done on one print run in the US established that the publishing industry’s total carbon footprint amounts to 12.4 million metric tons. Which roughly comes up to around 3kg of CO2 equivalent generated per book.
Demand and supply - as with most businesses, publishers estimate the demand and print a surplus of books. If these books don’t get sold, bookstores could get a refund from the publisher, but they’ll have to ship it back to the source. That outweighs the cost of the refund, so any surplus books will likely get destroyed. (Fun fact: I learnt this from K-drama Romance is a Bonus Book but you can read more about it here.)
It's a lose-lose situation. Recycling paper is not the most environmentally friendly because it requires a lot of energy to break down the paper to process it into a clean sheet.
I can’t deny the addictive pull of new books. Just the smell of fresh woodsy pulp is an instant mood lifter. But we buy books for its content and not for the smell… right?
So here’s what I’ve been doing to curb my book buying obsession:
Support our libraries by borrowing physical books or digitally through Libby or Overdrive. Book borrowing is so much more convenient these days!
Utilising my Ebook Reader - for books that I don’t need to own physically, I’ve used my Kindle to buy books directly from Amazon. The best part is I hold my library of TBRs within a single device.
Book thrifting! I get a kick from hunting around for copies of books that I want to have. Or if that gets too tiresome, my go-to are second hand online stores like…
AMB! - We’ve had so many generous donations and most of these books are of good quality too. Best part is the proceeds of each book goes straight to planting a tree!
TL;DR
I love books and I won’t stop buying them. But the way I’m consuming all these great reads are changing. Sourcing for books I want to keep is a lot more fun because I love a good deal. And the best part about supporting pre-loved bookstores is that we’re giving old books more love.