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Some people read a lot. And comparing books to eReaders, there are some pretty strong health reasons to go with books over readers, but the environmental factor is also there. For energy, an eReader can be produced for around the cost of 100 books (eReaders take 100 KW hours and 65 pounds of carbon dioxide, books take 2 KW hours and 16 pounds of carbon dioxide [other sources say the carbon footprint of a book is 8.85 pounds of carbon dioxide]) For materials, eReaders take 33 pounds, including conflict materials, and 70 gallons of water and a lot of waste (dumped into landfills), while books (from recycled paper) take 2/3 pound of minerals. There is also a transportation cost which would be heavy on the book side.
So some books are printed from recycled paper (since we have a lot of that) (5-10 percent of books in the US). And virgin forest harvesting is responsible for the majority of the book industry’s 12.4 million metric ton footprint (2005). The use of recycled paper is increasing, too, as publishers sign on for programs.
But lets say worst case, all your books are coming from trees.
A tree that is around 1 foot diameter and 60 feet tall. Ignore taper for the measurement. 81,430 cubic inches of wood. A tree like that of pine would be around 1,600 pounds.
Now turn the tree into pulp to make paper. Half the tree is no good for making paper (knots, lignin, etc). So 850 pounds of paper. A tree could then produce around 80,500 sheets of computer paper. A book’s pages are half that size, or 161,000 sheets. Your books might be around 400 pages (200 sheets). So a tree would be around 805 books.
Now we ignored taper, so lets say 700 books, or even 650. Or we could imagine a taller tree that we took 60 feet off of.
I have probably a few thousand books, but I have relatively lot of books. So I have 2 or 3 trees worth of books. But then, almost all of my books I got second hand, so those books would be cut in half or more for paper use (if we figured everyone else into our math). A lot of them came from libraries, so dozens or hundreds of people used them before I got them. When I no longer have them, someone else can have them. Books last hundreds of years. I have some that are a hundred years old. So that’s cutting down the tree cost a lot. A tree could probably grow back by then, too.
But even if I used 2-3 trees for my books, I would be fine with that. Would you? Answer on our Facebook post.
A lot of people buy books that they have only interest in reading once (like romance novels, for example), so the cost may be higher, but these books get turned in to book stores and second hand stores and bought and are returned again and again, so the cost may actually be lower. Also, the value of these books to the economy is interesting, because they bring in money (several times) to charities like Salvation Army and small businesses like the always-troubled second-hand book store, with no additional cost to make or upkeep.
