Are ereaders really that green?

[WillAdams]

kwjones wrote:
>Clear cutting does not equal deforestation.

Exactly. As I noted, for the best payment, one wants to have a homogenous load of only loblolly pines, so the best money will come from cutting a stand of trees especially planted to be cut for pulp, and immediately after being cut, it will be re-planted --- growing up, I saw several stands be cut several times close to where I lived.

Many printers these days are FSC certified:

http://www.fsc.org/

Unlike the gasoline which people are burning in their cars, trees are a renewable resource.

William

[kwjones]

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where clear cutting is a common practice. The lots being clear cut are smaller and for every tree cut down, 6 seedlings are replanted. The clear cut lots are rotated like farm crops. They are also able to clear out undergrowth which is the main source of fuel for wildfires.

[dsvick]

Part of the answer will also vary by where you live. If you live in a major city where transportation is plentiful and there a lot of book stores which will be stocked and resupplied regardless of your purchasing then the carbon foot print of a single pBook is, comparitively small.

If, on the other hand you live somewhere remote, or where transport of physical product is not easy (Hawaii, one of the islands in Alaska) the foot print of a pBook will be much greater.

Regardless of actually figures and ignoring the ecological impact of the reader itself, for every eBook you purchase vs a pBook you are having a positive impact - which too me means I can tell my wife I'm saving the planet every time I'm reading and she wants me to do something else!!

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by emonti8384

It concerns me that the knowledge isn't available to us. For example, I have no idea where to throw my old cell phone away, or my old reader. I know where to buy new ones tho!

For those of you in the US, check out Earth911. This tells you where you can recycle darn near any product you put in the search bar.

As far as cell phones specifically, you can take those into any cell phone store and they will accept them for recycling. For computer equipment, both HP and Dell, and most likely other computer manufacturers, will accept old machines back for recycling. Both HP & Dell now have an internal policy that e-waste will not be shipped out of the US for dismantling in 3rd world countries.

[Gladtobemom]

Circuit boards are "reclaimed" if you actually turn them in to be "un-manufactured."

The bad part is that there are so few places to turn them in for that purpose. The university here will accept computers, electronics, cell phoned, etc. They go to an "un-manufacturing" facility where the metals and plastics are reclaimed.

Many manufacturers are actually MAKING things so that they can be un-manufactured. It's now required in Japan and will be soon in Europe. Hopefully, it will continue in this direction.

[t-town]

depends, when properly recycled, I think E-readers are greener than paper. Have you seen the installations where paper is being blanked again? They are huge and use a lot of chlorine. Here, in Belguim (and I think the whole European Union), you pay to recycle your product when you buy the product. So you can deliver it to any garbage installation (I don't know how to translate this one, it's a place where you can bring all your garbage, sorted into paper, plastic, hard plastic, wood, glass etc.) for free.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by t-town

So you can deliver it to any garbage installation (I don't know how to translate this one, it's a place where you can bring all your garbage, sorted into paper, plastic, hard plastic, wood, glass etc.) for free.

We, in the US, would just call it a recycling center.

And the problem with that is laziness. I don't know how it is elsewhere but I know the biggest impediment to widespread recycling is plain, simple, selfish, laziness!!! A lot of places have curbside pick up of trash and even then people dont want to take the time to separate things into different bags. And heaven forbid they have to actually take it somewhere to drop off!!

Where I live we are lucky enough to have curbside pick up of recyclables and, even better, we only need to separate paper from everything else. So glass, plastics, and aluminum can all go together. My only complaint is the low number of plastic types that are accepted.

[dmaul1114]

Yep, the biggest barrier to recycling is laziness. As you note, many people through out recyclables in the trash here, even though we have recycling bins near the dumpsters!

And even more so is that the recycling here doesn't have to be separarted--paper, plastic metal, and glass all go in the been and get sorted at the recycling center. Were I lived before it was like yours, with paper in one bin and everything else in the other.

Really no excuse for the laziness given how easy it is. I just keep some paper shopping bags around, and put my recyclable in them and chuck them in the recyling bin on my way to work etc. when the bag is full.

So yeah, I can imagine recycling is very seldomly done in the US in places that have no pick up and people have to drive it to a recycling center.


Also thanks to the posters above for the links to look up recycling locations for products. I have bunch of dead AA/AAA batteries I need to recycle sometime.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by dsvick

We, in the US, would just call it a recycling center.

And the problem with that is laziness. I don't know how it is elsewhere but I know the biggest impediment to widespread recycling is plain, simple, selfish, laziness!!! A lot of places have curbside pick up of trash and even then people dont want to take the time to separate things into different bags. And heaven forbid they have to actually take it somewhere to drop off!!

Where I live we are lucky enough to have curbside pick up of recyclables and, even better, we only need to separate paper from everything else. So glass, plastics, and aluminum can all go together. My only complaint is the low number of plastic types that are accepted.

Here too. Tuesdays Trash Day. Fridays Reclycle Day.

All you have to do is put your plastic, paper, aluminum, or cardboard in the big blue bin. You don't even have to clean it.

I can't tell you how many peoples trash cans are overflowing on Tuesday with cardboard and paper. Just in my neighborhood.

Makes me just want to jump out of my car, ring their bell and shake them.

But I haven't.

[nekokami]

We are constantly having problems with people throwing trash into the recycling bins where I work. This contaminates the whole container, so it all just gets tipped back into the trash bin, rather than being recycled.

It's hard to tell what will turn out to be more environmentally sound. I read a report a couple of years ago that claimed that I'd have to use the same ceramic mug 1000 times to break even with disposable paper. Here's a similar report:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008...rbonfootprints

Of course, I drink a lot of tea, so it's not hard to make that goal within a year.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

I can't tell you how many peoples trash cans are overflowing on Tuesday with cardboard and paper. Just in my neighborhood.

Makes me just want to jump out of my car, ring their bell and shake them.

But I haven't.

I understand completely!! On trash day here we do everything on the same day, we invariably have two or more recycling bags to a single trash bag, while many people on the street have several (4 or 5 in some cases) trash bags and no recycling bags - it drives me nuts!!

[Kali Yuga]

OK, let's look at a few facts (for a change) . A few years ago, a study was done by the Book Industry Study Group and Green Press Initiative of the environmental impact of the book industry:

http://www.ecolibris.net/book_industry_footprint.asp
http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/...ds_summary.pdf

Key facts as of 2006/2007 include:
• US book industry alone uses 1.5 million metric tons of paper
• More than 1 billion books were unsold in the US in 2006. Looks like some of that is recycled, most goes to landfills
• 70% or more of the paper used by the book industry is NOT from tree farms, but is from forests
• Even re-seeding an existing forest is not a good thing, as you're still destroying the biodiversity of that environment
• Only around 15% or so of paper used by the book industry is recycled (that number is slowly increasing though)

Also, the Cleantech group did an impact study on the Kindle, and they believe that a Kindle's carbon footprint is the equivalent of roughly 23 books ( http://cleantech.com/news/4867/clean...-positive-envi ).

Now, I agree that ebook readers are not a "free lunch" and the above doesn't address all of the aforementioned issues (e.g. heavy metals, improper disposal of electronics). Ergo, you should be mindful of your impact, especially when disposing of gadgets (of all types). But he also seems to overlook the lack of recycling by the book industry and the energy used to create, inventory and deliver paper books -- most of which wind up as just surplus inventory.

So if you have an ebook reader, use it a handful of times, and toss it away, then I concur there's no advantage. But I'm fairly confident that the environmental impact, particularly the carbon footprint, of the book biz will drop as ebooks become a larger percentage of the business.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by JerseyBiker

You can get $3 a piece for ink cartridges at Staples. They send you a coupon for up to 3 cartridges at a time. They use to give you $3 off per cartridge up to $9 when you shop but they change it to sending the coupon. It's a good way to recycle and get something in return

~eddie

I'll follow through on this!

[SCION]

Originally Posted by dsvick

...My only complaint is the low number of plastic types that are accepted.

[SCION]

Christmas time is the absolute worst when it comes to packaging that is not recycled!!!