How many books have you read on your ereader?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there any environmental impact? The reader would still be manufactured, and the paper book printed, irrespective of whether or not you personally bought them.

Originally Posted by jhowell

There is in the aggregate in the long term. Future books will be printed and devices created based on sales trends over time.

I thought aggregate impact was strongly implied. I assume the request in the OP was to get a sense (via sampling) what the aggregate might be without necessarily actually quantifying the impact of a single reader, single ebook, or single paper book.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by maddz

...The pain is that I generally have to manually add them, fiddle around with covers, then combine (or split inappropriately combined) editions... The only time I get to do this is weekends, and frequently we’re away with restricted broadband.

What you call a pain, I call some of my favorite nerdy activities!

TBH, I don’t use the mobile app at all. I don’t like working on the small screen, especially when I’m doing a lot of editing.

The mobile app could just make it easier to quickly update currently read books and the like. I've been using Goodreads for that, though overall, I prefer LT to GR and always have.

[jhowell]

I think it is interesting to consider the number of books read over the lifetime of an e-reader device. For my prior devices it was enough to add far less than $1 to the cost of each book read, so I feel that I have gotten my money's worth out of those purchases. It is too soon to tell if that will be the case for my current, more expensive, device.

But I don't think that it is or ever will be an important ecological question. As I see it e-book readers are a declining niche and the number of e-books read on non-dedicated devices, such as smart phones and tablets, is likely much greater. The relative environmental impact for those multi-purpose devices is far harder to evaluate.

[Tarana]

I have too many devices, but I'd say I read 600 books on my Kindle Keyboard before the power button started to fail. There are too many things to consider regarding environmental impact. Trees can be grown again, plastics tend to contaminate the environment. What about the batteries? Too much for me. I can't read paper books any longer, so thankfully, I have ereaders and audiobook players.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pastaenthusiast

I was reading about the environmental impact of paper vs ebooks lately and it got me thinking about how many books we read on ereaders.
If you keep track or want to hazard a guess- how many books have you read on your specific ereader?
I have a Kobo Aura One and I just hit the 60 book mark on that reader. I read about half paper and half ebooks. I don't plan to upgrade my ereader soon so I hope to hit at least 100 before I need to buy a new reader.

Can't really say for a specific device (other than hundreds per for most of them), but since I went "full ebook" in 2007 I've read about 3,770 digital vs. about 6 paper. In that time my reading devices were (still have all of them) a Sony 505, Kindle 2us, Kindle 3, Kindle Touch, Cybook Opus, Kobo Aura HD and iPad Mini 4 (so 6 eInk & one LCD tablet). Also read more rarely on a couple of iPhones and tablets that were/are mainly used for other things.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I think it is interesting to consider the number of books read over the lifetime of an e-reader device. For my prior devices it was enough to add far less than $1 to the cost of each book read, so I feel that I have gotten my money's worth out of those purchases. It is too soon to tell if that will be the case for my current, more expensive, device.

But I don't think that it is or ever will be an important ecological question. As I see it e-book readers are a declining niche and the number of e-books read on non-dedicated devices, such as smart phones and tablets, is likely much greater. The relative environmental impact for those multi-purpose devices is far harder to evaluate.

I agree that it is unlikely that the ecological impact of dedicated e-readers will every be anything other than negligible. I suspect that almost all non-dedicated devices that are used for reading would have been bought anyway. (Although there might be a lot of tablets bought exclusively or primarily for reading PDFs.) It seems to me that book reading on generic devices bought without consideration of book reading instead of buying paper books could be a big ecological win unless the ecological impact of paper books is insignificant.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Trees can be grown again.

Large tracts of land dedicated to tree monoculture cause their own environmental problems.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Large tracts of land dedicated to tree monoculture cause their own environmental problems.

True, but paper is a sustainable resource. Battery manufacture (the battery is the most “toxic” part of an e-reader) assuredly is not.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by HarryT

True, but paper is a sustainable resource. Battery manufacture (the battery is the most “toxic” part of an e-reader) assuredly is not.

Yeah, I suspect the environmental damage of an ebook device is less in the manufacture than it is in the disposal. I say hang on to them until you can get rid of them responsibly.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

True, but paper is a sustainable resource. Battery manufacture (the battery is the most “toxic” part of an e-reader) assuredly is not.

That is until non toxic or at least less toxic alternatives show up for rechargeable batteries. E.g. replacing lithium with graphite or aluminum ion batteries. Only because batteries are toxic now, doesn't mean they will be in the future.

[GeoffR]

I have only ever had one ereader, still on the original battery. I have read 882 books on it.

Edit: Original cost was $199, so now less than $0.23 per book read and still decreasing. ($NZ)

[barryem]

Originally Posted by jhowell

But I don't think that it is or ever will be an important ecological question. As I see it e-book readers are a declining niche and the number of e-books read on non-dedicated devices, such as smart phones and tablets, is likely much greater. The relative environmental impact for those multi-purpose devices is far harder to evaluate.

I suspect that ereaders do have at least some environmental impact and since paper is a renewable resource it probably has less impact. Further, paper books make paper more valuable and that makes it worthwhile to grow more trees which is also an ecological plus. Or so it would seem.

Barry

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by barryem

I suspect that ereaders do have at least some environmental impact and since paper is a renewable resource it probably has less impact. Further, paper books make paper more valuable and that makes it worthwhile to grow more trees which is also an ecological plus. Or so it would seem.

Barry

Even with the decline of chlorine bleaching, turning wood into pulp and then into paper is not exactly a low environmental impact process. It is both water and energy intensive and releases a witches brew of chemicals. But as one former Minister of Highways for the province of British Columbia said in reference to the stink from a pulp mill, "Air pollution is the smell of money". Flying Phil was a rather colourful character.

[John F]

Originally Posted by pastaenthusiast

...
If you keep track or want to hazard a guess- how many books have you read on your specific ereader?
...

231 +/-~3.

[shalym]

As with others, this is impossible for me to be accurate about. I've owned (and still own) many e-readers, and tend to use them all. One reader usually gets used most often though, and for me, lately, it's the 2017 Oasis...at least it has been since I got it when it was released in 2017. I've read 124 books since I got my Oasis, and about 97% of my reading in that time period was done on my Oasis.

Shari