Selling used books is, by its very nature, environmentally friendly. Obviously books are made of paper. Every book that is created has an environmental impact both in terms of trees being cut down, and in terms of the fossil fuels burned in manufacturing, shipping, etc. Every time a person buys a used book instead of a new one, it chips away at those impacts.
According to this article on ecology.com, “world consumption of paper has grown four hundred percent in the last 40 years” and “nearly 4 billion trees or 35% of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries”. It goes on to quote an EPA report that found that “pulp and paper mills are among the worst polluters to air, water and land of any industry”. Obviously anything we can do to reduce this environmental devastation is a great thing for the planet.
Despite the environmental costs of making books, there is an environmental upshot to the nature of books. Books aren’t perishable or depletable , they never “go bad” and you can use them without “using them up”. In fact, books can be used again and again by as many people as can get their hands on them. As sellers of used books, we are facilitating that process, finding new homes for books.
Whether they knew it or not, used bookstores were green before it was cool. The advent of online sellers like you and me just (more…)