Environmental Impact of E-books
Read an E-Book Week March 8-14Do e-books reduce our carbon footprint?
The concept of reading e-books seems like a no-brainer in terms of a cleaner environment. An e-reader can store over 200 books, magazines and newspapers in one small package. That’s a lot of trees that don’t get cut to produce reading material. There are those, however, who say “Not so fast. What about the plastics and energy used to build that e-reader.” We decided to challenge our assertion that e-books are better for the environment. It was quite the journey. You see and hear the buzz words everywhere - carbon footprint, environmentally friendly and green. We’re encouraged to buy, use and dispose with the environment in mind. While it’s easy to recognize the negative impact of excess packaging and chemical content in many of the products we purchase, it’s not so easy when it comes to reading material. When we think of print books its easy to envision the pulp and paper industry chewing up trees and spitting out toxic waste. When we look at a digital reader, or a computer, it’s not so easy to see what goes into the manufacturing of the product. Here’s some things to keep in mind as we make our choice. |
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E-books are created electronically. No trees are cut to produce them. No ink is used to put the words on the page. No fossil fuel is used to run presses or power trucks to move them around the country. No storage facilities are heated to store boxes of books until they are shipped to bookstores. E-books are delivered to the end user electronically. They are read electronically. They are disposed of with a push of a delete button, without ever taking up room in a landfill.
Consider This:
So, things were looking up for e-books. Then Mark Linder started an interesting chat on his blog that pointed out a few new thoughts concerning the waste created and energy used to manufacture an e-book reader. What needed to be done was a life-cycle assessment of paper books versus e-books and e-readers to see what impact their creation and reading had on the environment. Enter Greg Kozak, who did his master’s degree thesis on the subject. Greg took into consideration the impact from manufacture through distribution, use and disposal. He assessed energy consumption, raw materials, air and water pollution and waste disposal. He even considered ink, packaging, and solid waste during the life cycle of the product. His results proved that e-books were “greener” than print books. Greg found that a paper book created 4 times the greenhouse gas emissions of an e-book reader and several times more ozone-depleting substances and chemicals associated with acid rain. Print books needed 3 times more raw materials and 78 times more water consumption than e-books. Adherents to print books point to energy consumption to use e-book readers. E Ink, who produce e-book reader screens, have engineered a new screen that only refreshes when a page is turned, as opposed to older screens that constantly refresh. The result is a dramatic reduction in energy consumption. What about print newspapers vs. e-versions of the same newspaper? In a study done by the University of California Berkeley, it was found that reading a newspaper electronically results in the release of 32-140 times less CO2, several orders of magnitude less nitrogen oxide, and SOx, and the use of 26-27 times less water. 
Given the evidence, it seems reading electronically is greener than reading on paper. We also have to take into consideration that many people already have devices that can read e-books. These include your PDA, your phone, your computer—even some music devices have screens large enough to read e-books. Sales of e-books have sky-rocketed in Japan since people began to download e-books onto their phones. They receive one chapter a day and read while they commute. When considering your choice of reading material choose to read an e-book. But remember the environmental cost of needlessly recycling your e-book reader just to acquire the latest slick model. * Conservatree—Trees Into Paper ** World Business Council for Sustainable Development |
