Are e-readers more environmentally friendly than paper books?

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Paper manufacture is not a terribly environmentally-friendly process. See:

Environmental Impact of Paper

With e-readers, the main pollutant is the manufacture of the battery and the screen. In essence, you're swapping one polluting manufacturing process with another. It's difficult to compare environmental impacts directly, because they're different types of pollution.

Books are greener. The manufacture and distribution of both are decidedly ungreen, BUT these things can be regulated. Disposal is much tougher to manage and an e-reader in a landfill is much worse than a box of books in the same landfill.

[meeera]

There have been environmental impact studies, and as far as the manufacture of the ereader goes (which is by far the greatest share of its impact), you "break even" after maybe 30-50 books, depending on your assumptions.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

There have been environmental impact studies, and as far as the manufacture of the ereader goes (which is by far the greatest share of its impact), you "break even" after maybe 30-50 books, depending on your assumptions.

Surely that's only true if the paper books that you would otherwise have bought would not exist as a result of you having bought the reader. Is that a valid assumption?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Surely that's only true if the paper books that you would otherwise have bought would not exist as a result of you having bought the reader. Is that a valid assumption?

In the long run, sure. Just like reducing household power consumption eventually reduces the fossil fuels needed to power the network - even if on the one particular day you turn your airconditioner off, that doesn't reduce the network's coal purchases on that day.

As an overall part of an average person's environmental impact, either (ebooks vs paper books) is probably pretty minimal; but that's not really a great reason not to reduce impact where you reasonably can.

[Vmurph]

But think of this. If only one thousand people read a thousand books, that's one million paper books that had to be manufactured, compared to only one thousand eReaders needed to read the same number of books.

[WillAdams]

I crunched the numbers for this a while back: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=11

To repeat here for you convenience since necro-posting is frowned upon:


The vast majority of trees which are cut for paper pulp are quick-growing loblolly pines which will be re-planted almost immediately, larger, older, nicer trees are usually cut for lumber, so one should be able to let the 8.85 pounds figure stand for paper products w/o concern for deforestation.

Here's a page which indicates most CO_2 production is for energy:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

And here's a page which indicates that CO_2 production is a much larger problem for the manufacturing of electronics:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730
w/ a ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight, so my PRS-505 weighs roughly 9 ozs., so presumably required 108 ounces of fuel to manufacture (on-going energy usage is not considered)
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm
gives us a figure of 19.4 pounds of CO_2 per gallon of gasoline which equals roughly 16.36875 pounds of CO_2 to make the ebook reader.

So getting two books for the Sony should make it roughly break even, and each printed book beyond that which is not purchased should result in a net reduction of CO_2 emissions, since the energybulletin.net page indicates that the embodied energy usage for electronics is much greater than the lifetime usage.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

I crunched the numbers for this a while back: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=11

Thanks!

So we're all doing the right thing by using ebook readers.

I doubt that anyone here has read fewer than two books per device they've bought, not even HarryT.

[QuantumIguana]

These advertisements that I get in my mailbox that I can't even opt out of are a waste of paper. A paper book can be reused a number of times. An e-reader is just a few ounces of plastic. If you're concerned about wasted plastic, use a metal water bottle instead of buying bottled water. You'll more than compensate for the plastic in you're e-reader quite quickly.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

These advertisements that I get in my mailbox that I can't even opt out of are a waste of paper. A paper book can be reused a number of times. An e-reader is just a few ounces of plastic. If you're concerned about wasted plastic, use a metal water bottle instead of buying bottled water. You'll more than compensate for the plastic in you're e-reader quite quickly.

There's quite a lot more to it than an inert piece of plastic - the battery components, for example. There are issues both on the mining side and on the e-waste side.

Cleantech's estimate of just the carbon impact over the lifetime of an eink reader was 168 kg (carbon dioxide equivalent emissions), but that's a pretty old analysis now.

[ProfCrash]

Articles on this:

http://www.zdnet.com/are-e-readers-o...nt-7000001689/

3.The more ebooks read on a single e-reader, the greater the potential offset vs. paper books. Depending on who you believe and what is being compared, that might be 20-100 paper books for equivalent CO2 emissions, or 40-70 paper books taking into account other impacts, like fuel, water, minerals and human health. But that does not mean either has an impact that is good — both can improve

http://nicomachus.net/2011/04/enviro...s-and-e-books/

The report claims that, when comparing the carbon footprint, fossil fuel use, mineral consumption, and water use of an e-reader’s production with the paper book market, the impact of production of one e-reader is roughly the equivalent of 40-50 traditional books. I read this to mean that, if an e-reader owner reads fewer than 50 books on her e-reader, then reading traditional paper-based books would have had a lighter impact on the environment.

So think 50 books on an e-reader leads to an enviromental wash, more then 50 books on an e-reader leads to an enviromental improvement.

That is per e-reader. So those of us who are updating every year and not reading 51 books a year are not doing the environment any favors. Those of us who are reading 51 books on a given e-reader have earned our Captain Planet badge.

Woohoooo

[DrNefario]

So, it looks like not having an ereader and not reading any books would be the most environmentally-sound option. I don't think any of us here are very keen on that one. And I guess it depends what we'd be doing instead.

[Barbara1955]

Well when I was a kid they Forced ALL the Stores to switch from Paper to Plastic! Just to save the Trees! So how many trees do you think your saving by using a Re-Use able eReader over a Bunch of HB/PB books made from trees!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Katie1

Well when I was a kid they Forced ALL the Stores to switch from Paper to Plastic! Just to save the Trees! So how many trees do you think your saving by using a Re-Use able eReader over a Bunch of HB/PB books made from trees!

Weird. Paper is a renewable resource. Plastic (from oil) is not.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Surely that's only true if the paper books that you would otherwise have bought would not exist as a result of you having bought the reader. Is that a valid assumption?

What about in cases like mine, where every single book I buy would need to be transported all across Europe (considering that also for years before e-reading, I bought nearly all my paper books from Amazon, BookDepository or UK sellers on eBay)?

The books still exist (print numbers will go down eventually, but I assume that takes some time until publishers have a good idea how many paper vs ebooks they tend to sell and adjust print numbers accordingly) and obviously planes still fly and cargo trucks run also without my books on them, but overall, I'd assume that people importing fewer goods from abroad can't have a negative effect.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Weird. Paper is a renewable resource. Plastic (from oil) is not.

Yes, and now some places are going the other way by offering paper in place of plastic.