Thread: Will Paper books fade away?
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Old 08-04-2009, 10:50 AM   #229
hansl
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hansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single bookhansl has the entire Project Gutenberg collection on their reader and has corrected every single error in every single book
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertb View Post
Dear All:

My two cents is based on the COST to obey environmental constraints. ALL paper for hardcover and paperback books is bleached paper... giving it that white we prize. That bleaching releases what is known as PaperMill Sludge. PaperMill sludge contains 32 known carcinogens and so far cannot be remedied. You cannot burn it, bury it, or crush it to where it will not get into the groundwater. You can only contain it and containment, so far, is a disaster.

My point is that new regulations for PaperMill Sludge are enormously costly. Guess who pays, folks? Now, when you can buy a new eBook for $7.99 (coming soon) or buy a paperback for $24.99 (within two years)... which one are you going to do??

THAT is why the clock is ticking on paperbacks and hard covers. The sun is just rising on the Dawn of the eBook!!
I agree in principle with your bleaching concern. Regarding your pricing example this sounds more like an author exploitation. And I would prefer a hardcover book now to a pb in two years.

The environmental ace has already been played regarding reader hardware, but I also hope you don't have a car and don't live in a house with a bad insulation which needs heating or air conditioning system. What BTW is your water use policy? You are not using aluminum foil, are you? Or gold in any form? And so on and so on. And when the oil will be gone (see the documentary "A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash"), I'll still have my pbooks keeping me warm inside and outside, well, er, for a another week or so. Civilisation is an ecological pain.

However, I'm much in favour of reducing paper use. So we could start with things with low personal value like TV-program papers, newspapers, ads, any sort of printed information with an expiration date which a private household would throw away anyway after a few weeks.

Those collecting newspapers for the historical record could access these in the Library of Congress and get a searchable index for free. Storing each and every Bit on an own disk is ecologically not so sound, I think.

hansl
Last edited by hansl; 08-04-2009 at 11:13 AM.
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