MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Paper vs. paperless: Which makes reading greener?

Steven Lyle Jordan · 10-09-2009, 08:48 AM

Toxins have been mentioned a few times related to electronics production. It is important to realize there are also toxins in the chemical baths used to pulp, recongeal and bleach paper, by some estimates as many as 32 individual toxic chemicals. When the process is done, the water and toxic chemicals are dumped straight into the local water table. (We can probably add the toxins and lubricants inherent in the paper-producing machinery, some of which is certainly washing into that water table as well.)

Recycling is an important part of this equation, and as many have pointed out, we really don't have a proper electronics recycling system down yet. Paper recycling can also stand improvement, as some estimates say as little as 5% of paper actually gets recycled, and by anybody's account, paper can only be recycled a limited number of times (generally considered around 3-4 times) before it is non-recoverable.

But comparing e-book readers to paper, you must consider the sheer number of books that are generally replaced by a single reader... not 2 or 3, or a dozen... but hundreds, even thousands, that can be replaced. Even if you only have a few-score books on your reader, you are making a significant environmental savings over the production of scores of books.

And the figures get even better for non-dedicated readers, like computers, PDAs and cellphones... since they were manufactured for other purposes, you can consider that they did not require manufacturing for e-book reading... or that the amount of resources used for that device must be subdivided among all the tasks they fulfill, meaning the reading task will only amount to a fraction of the overall manufacturing costs, down (depending on the number of tasks fulfilled by the device) to near-zero. Of course, PDAs and cellphones are much smaller than dedicated devices and computers, meaning less material was used in manufacture... you want the smallest footprint, read on a cellphone,r PDA or Blackberry.

So there really is no comparison, to my mind: E-books win hands down, in a dedicated or non-dedicated device environment, over paper.

10-09-2009, 08:48 AM	#16
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	Toxins have been mentioned a few times related to electronics production. It is important to realize there are also toxins in the chemical baths used to pulp, recongeal and bleach paper, by some estimates as many as 32 individual toxic chemicals. When the process is done, the water and toxic chemicals are dumped straight into the local water table. (We can probably add the toxins and lubricants inherent in the paper-producing machinery, some of which is certainly washing into that water table as well.) Recycling is an important part of this equation, and as many have pointed out, we really don't have a proper electronics recycling system down yet. Paper recycling can also stand improvement, as some estimates say as little as 5% of paper actually gets recycled, and by anybody's account, paper can only be recycled a limited number of times (generally considered around 3-4 times) before it is non-recoverable. But comparing e-book readers to paper, you must consider the sheer number of books that are generally replaced by a single reader... not 2 or 3, or a dozen... but hundreds, even thousands, that can be replaced. Even if you only have a few-score books on your reader, you are making a significant environmental savings over the production of scores of books. And the figures get even better for non-dedicated readers, like computers, PDAs and cellphones... since they were manufactured for other purposes, you can consider that they did not require manufacturing for e-book reading... or that the amount of resources used for that device must be subdivided among all the tasks they fulfill, meaning the reading task will only amount to a fraction of the overall manufacturing costs, down (depending on the number of tasks fulfilled by the device) to near-zero. Of course, PDAs and cellphones are much smaller than dedicated devices and computers, meaning less material was used in manufacture... you want the smallest footprint, read on a cellphone,r PDA or Blackberry. So there really is no comparison, to my mind: E-books win hands down, in a dedicated or non-dedicated device environment, over paper.