Why eBooks Are Green And Printed Books Are Not

Have you ever really thought about what goes into getting a physical, ink-and-paper book into your possession? It's not pretty.

First, trees must be harvested for their wood. This involves heavy equipment burning fuel and belching out carbon dioxide waste. The wood must then be transported to a pulp mill, requiring the burning of more fossil fuels.

At the pulp mill, the wood is converted to fiber board. This process requires the use of chemicals, such as sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide, and bleaching agents, such as chlorine. While many of these chemical agents are recovered for reuse, a troubling amount of polluting dioxins are released. As pulp mills are invariably located on major freshwater rivers, these pollutants are discharged directly into the water ecosystem.

From the pulp mill, the fiber boards are shipped or trucked to a paper mill for the next round of processing. More energy is consumed and more pollution is created, including carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrogen oxide, mercury, nitrates, methanol, benzene, and others.

"Pulp and paper processing is the third largest industrial polluter to land, air, and water in the United States, releasing over 100 million kilograms of toxic pollution annually."
      - 1996 National Pollutant Release Inventory report

Of course, the paper products still need to be shipped to the printer for the energy-intensive process of printing and binding the book. Inks in particular are an environmental concern, as they usually contain petroleum products and heavy metals, both of which leech into the soil when printed paper products languish in a landfill.

Finally, the printed and bound book must be transported to your local bookstore or to your doorstep, involving further carbon-based fuel consumption.

In addition to avoiding the environmentally-unfriendly process just discussed, electronic books offer several key advantages, some of which are not immediately obvious:

1. Access to the material is instant. No waiting for the mail to arrive and no driving to the library or bookstore.


2. Storage is permanent. The eBook will reside on your hard drive and be available whenever you wish to access it. Assuming you are backing up your data (you are, right?), then you will have access to it forever.


3. Material is searchable. One of the most overlooked pluses of electronic books is that you can perform a search by keyword or phrase and go directly to that page or chapter. With paper books, it can take a frustrating amount of time to hunt down that one quote or passage you read earlier.


4. Allows digital note-taking. If you are the type to make notes and comments in your printed books - affectionately known as "marginalia" - take heart that many of the new e-book reader devices allow for this activity, storing your notes electronically. No more losing the notes when you lose the book.


5. Does not require shelf space. Not only do you not need to buy another bookcase to house your new purchases, but there is nothing to catch fire or turn musty and nothing additional to lug during your next move.


6. Price is lower. If nothing else in this article appeals to your senses, this should. With the elimination of printing and distribution costs, publishers of eBooks can charge less than their paper-and-ink colleagues.

This would not be a balanced article if the disadvantages of electronic books were not addressed.

1. Requires electricity. One common argument against the "greenliness" of eBooks is that they require electricity to view, thus consuming additional power. While undeniably true, a sense of proportion must be introduced into the conversation. The amount of electrical energy consumed during the process of reading - and rereading - an eBook on your computer is absolutely miniscule when compared with the power gobbled up during the traditional papermaking and printing processes.


2. Only available on the computer. Another common complaint against eBooks is that they are not available in truly offline situations, such as remote vacations, trips to the beach, or extended power outages. While true, ask yourself these questions: how many hours per year do you really spend in these offline situations? And how much reading do you actually want to do during these periods? If you're the kind of person that must have reading material handy at all times, then keep a few softcover books around for just such an occasion.


3. Isn't a book. Finally, a major downside to electronically published material is that is lacks the physical ease and the tactile comfort of a real, printed book. This aspect is probably the single biggest reason that eBooks have not encroached more on the market share of traditional books. Many consumers, especially adults over 35, grew up exclusively with printed materials and find the electronic format cumbersome and distasteful. But as the younger generations come into the book buying market, and book reader devices - such as the Amazon Kindle - go mainstream, this resistance will likely be overcome.

Digital eBooks and audio books may not be the right choice for every person in every situation, but before you make your next book purchase, ask yourself if a digital version will work for you. In addition to the many benefits listed in this article, you will be doing your small part for the environment. We here at GreenEbooksDirectory.org will salute you!