To e-book or not to e-book? It's an open question.
So with iPads and Kindles abounding, what’s the greenest way to read these days?
A (relatively) recent NY Times article by Daniel Goleman and life cycle assessment guru Gregory Norris dug into the question. Turns out it depends on what timeframe you use for your calculations. Any e-reader certainly takes a lot more energy and resources to produce than a book, but when you factor in the fact that a book is limited by the sum of its pages while reading on an e-reader is (almost) infinitely expandable, then an e-reader starts looking greener the more you read.
How much do you need to read to break even? Energy, water, and mineral consumption should balance out after reading 40 to 50 books. However, toxic emissions linked to cancer and other human health concerns don’t register a net improvement until you’ve read ~75 e-books (assuming you’re replacing new book purchases with e-book purchases), and greenhouse gas emissions don’t balance out until you’ve read over 100. Dealing with electronics waste is a particularly vexing problem, though companies like Apple are starting to offer rebates when you turn in your old gizmos for recycling.
So if you’re a voracious devourer of text then an e-reader may win the eco day, but the best pick is probably still a trip to the library, or bumming a good read off a friend. Last time we checked though, our well-worn Harry Potter collection didn’t offer Facebook and HD movies on a plane, so we’re not entirely convinced a spiffy new iPad isn’t still an utmost necessity.
Wow, I didn’t know that an ebook reader does as much harm to the environment as regular books, if not more. I really wanted a Kindle for its convenience. But after reading the article, I think I’m going to stick with used books for now.
Wouldn’t a Kindle have much less impact than an iPad, given it uses e-ink instead of fancy graphics? I would also think you get much more savings if you use it to read, e.g. the Sunday Times or magazines that are print-heavy. Please help me feel less guilty about just getting my significant other a Nook for his birthday!
Here’s another perspective about another way to see this– the artificial light required to read books, especially for the elderly could (in rare cases) figure in significantly to the calculation.
While I am content to take my used books into naturally lit conditions (or simply using an LED headlamp to read at night), some folks are not inclined to such decisions. My uncle from The Congo is exceptionally literate, but not in a technological sense. He does most of his reading in the sun room, with 400 square feet of window. But the sun is too bright during the day, and then when it’s night, there’s no task lamp available (or else the interior decorator would stage some sort of limbic apoplexy). So the alternative is the 1.5 kilowatts of halogens lights located 10 feet overhead. So, when I walk in for a visit, the shades are drawn, the lights are on, and the act of reading alone consumes more energy than most homes in the U.S. consume in their entirety.
If one compares that to an Ipad, which with its backlighting and variable text sizing capabilities, would seem to be an environmentally superior choice in this particular case.
But then I know he’s going to just play Angry Birds all day instead of making ukuleles. And that would be bad for everyone.