Monday Guest Blog by Lisa
April 28, 2008
I come in peace as Bookfox ambassador from Vulpes Libris. I am also lucky enough to be an author published by Two Ravens Press. So every Monday I shall be here discussing the serious and the less serious and hoping not to embarrass myself too much.
Today I’ve been considering the impact of books on the environment, especially in light of Eve Harvey’s article on the subject. Should I feel bad about writing novels which will be made into stacks of books? Well, I hadn’t until now, but then Raz from Eco Libris pointed out that:
Last month was released a new report ‘Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry’, which is probably the most important report that was published recently on the environmental impacts of the book publishing industry. This 86-page report was prepared by The Green Press Initiative (GPI) and The Book Industry Study Group (BISG).
The report analyzes the environmental impacts of the industry and its biggest contributor to the book industry’s carbon footprint is the use of virgin paper. According to the report, forest and forest harvest impacts have 62.7% share of total carbon emissions. Second is paper production at the mills with 22.4% share. Methan releases from landfilled books contribute 8.2%. btw – the total carbon footprint of the industry is 12.4 million metric tons or 8.85 lbs. of carbon dioxide per a book (2006 figures).
Two more points from the report which are related to the discussion here:
1. The report estimates that the amount of books that are printed but are unsold was more than 1 billion books, or about 25% of the total number of books produced in 2006 (4.15 billion books)
2. According to the U.S. EPA, books are accounted for 762,000 metric tons of paper in Municipal Solid Waste – way too much!
This I find quite scary. A quarter of all the books printed go unsold? That’s a lot of pulped fiction and a fair few trees gone to waste. So what’s the answer? The e-reader? Eco Libris’s idea of planting a tree for every book you purchase? Increased use of recycled paper? Or simply publishing fewer books?
One thing’s for sure, for the first time I’m rather relieved that my print run was relatively modest.
Lisa Glass blogs as part of the Vulpes Libris (Book Fox) collective. Her novel, Prince Rupert’s Teardrop, is out in paperback now.
maybe we should have plastic books that will last forever and be passed around the world. would be still have a job then? x
Lisa
I don’t think you have to worry too much – I write in the field of new media and I can assure you that the e-reader or the e-book will become an established format over the next ten years – add into the equation on-demand printing for those books that actually make it into print and I believe we will start to see a lot less wastage in this field. Of course, there will be those who will hold their hands up and mourn the demise of the word printed on paper and that will be true for those of us brought up with books, newspapers and so on. But for the young generation reared on computer screens, laptops and mobile TV, reading a book on a screen (and it will be a marvellous HD screen, you can adjust the font and click on links to check out footnotes or further research)will become a very natural thing to do. Research books, newspapers, information sheets etc will all become online mass-market in downloadable form and for those who really can’t live without the word on the printed page, then books will be available in concrete form – but for a premium. I don’t think this will be a bad thing – it will be good for the environment and we can all take responsibility for the format in which we choose to read.
“it will be good for the environment”
I am not pretending to know what I’m talking about here but will the ereader be good for the environment though? If you look at mobile phones, landfills are swamped with them and they bring out new versions all the time, so instead of paper you have continually upgraded plastic and metal to recycle and will they even be recycled? If people wanted to be environmentally friendly with books they presumably could be recycled already – the reason they aren’t is because of the way selling works not because it is not possible.
I just wonder vaguely when people say that something will transform an industry because, presumably, this is not just about materials but how to make money out of the new technology for an industy which will mean selling and upgrades and new features and…
I wonder if anyone can tell me what they think the effect of the ereader is going to be on writers?
Fascinating area. Just been thinking about it and these questions keep running through my head.
Good point, Rosy. Actually, the more we get into the publishing business here at Two Ravens Press, the more I think that a good part of the reason that 25% of all books printed go unsold and so probably get pulped is possibly in part bad planning from publishers, but also the constant and inevitable spectre of returns – see my recent post about the fact that retailers can pretty much return what they like, and we’ve known retailers to purposely over-order for an event, for example, and then send the rest back – and not always in resaleable condition. You have to print enough copies to meet the initial demand for a book, and you can often tell when pre-publication orders come in – called ‘dues’ – what that demand might be, but even if you do a very tight print run based on it, you can’t determine what the retailers are actually going to sell and what’s going to come flying back in a few months. Truly bizarre business!
Mmm. I remain to be convinced about ereaders – and it’s not just that I prefer the feel and smell of a book, nor that I’m a bit of a Luddite (which I hold my hand up to)- it’s as Rosy says … I can see them going the way of mobile ‘phones and computers in general and becoming an environmental hazard in their own right.
Sharon – I’m actually appalled to learn that returned books don’t necessarily come back in a saleable condition. That’s terrible. It’s tantamount to trespass to goods. I bet they’d be surprised if you sued them …
Fabulous article Lisa, and so wonderful to know you’re going to be a Monday blogger. I look forward to following your words :)
Oooh and you’ve begun with my kind of subject too! I can see your point about the e-reader perhaps not being so environmentally friendly Rosy, but I do think that we will eventually be in a position where companies are just not allowed to make things from materials that are non-biodegradable. Biodegradable plastics are in their infancy at the moment but as with CFC’s in fridges I can see a time when there will be legislation in place to protect the environment to such an extent that using these may be law.
But I agree that a story isn’t a story unless you’ve devoured it from sheets of crisp paper bound in a striking cover that all smells of literaryness :) But then I am a bookaholic and nothing else will do for me. But I don’t believe that’s a waste!
I suppose I keep thinking that paper is biodegradable and yet that doesn’t seem to be the point.
Can anyone explain this to me – why new technology is needed to make books environmentally friendly as opposed to making the BUSINESS of paper books environmentally friendly? Or is it just all too confusing to work out and nobody knows the answers at present? I am confused.
I hate the sound of all the spoiled returns.
I’m not convinced by e-readers either. All the children I know, who read books regularly, like the feel of paper, and some even start collecting their favorite authors’s books from as young as six. They like their graphics on computer in the form of computer games, but not their text – if that were true, there would already be plug-in-and-read novels for the PSP.
“maybe we should have plastic books that will last forever and be passed around the world” This made me laugh, Irene!
Thanks for all of these interesting comments. Perhaps print on demand could be the way forward?
Eve, you might well be right about this:
“Biodegradable plastics are in their infancy at the moment but as with CFC’s in fridges I can see a time when there will be legislation in place to protect the environment to such an extent that using these may be law.”
I thought that Vulpes Libris’s EmmaD made an interesting point in response to Eve’s article. She said:
“There’s another incentive to there being too many books in the system, which is that as you increase the print run for a book, the unit cost per book comes down dramatically. Since you sell the book for the same amount whatever the print run, you make a lot more money on selling the product of a print run of 20,000 than you do on a print run of 15,000, say – much more money than the extra 5,000 copies would suggest. So there’s a real incentive to print lots, sell lots into the bookshops and then… oops! Everyone was a bit over-optimistic, and they come trundling back.”
This just seems crazy to me.