According to his piece in the IBPA monthly, Raz Godelnik, founder of Eco-Libris claims that eBook devices can be bad for the environment, depending on the extent to which they are used and if they are recycled.
Godelnik writes: “Consumer electronics are notorious for containing a variety of toxic materials. Some companies are more transparent than others and make it relatively clear that their e-reader devices are free of toxic materials. But e-readers are something of an unknown variable.”
And as new eReaders populate the market, the old ones are filling up landfills. While companies like Apple and Amazon have recycling programs, not everyone uses them. Godelnik points out in his article, “according to the EPA, Americans generated about 3 million tons of electronic waste in 2007. Out of all that waste, only 13.6 percent was recycled. The rest ended up in landfills or incinerators, even though, as the Electronic TakeBack Coalition explains, the hazardous chemicals in them can leach out of landfills into groundwater and streams.”
ecolibris
The article is written by the co-founder ecolibris.net. Take a look at the site. What do you think?
Excerpt: More than 30 Million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. That’s definitely a problem – trees are one of the most valuable natural resources we have. They literally form the foundations of many natural systems and provide us with numerous benefits (carbon dioxide absorption, soil and water conservation, avalanche control, desertification prevention to name a few).
Renewable resource
Trees are also one of our renewable resources. We have been using them to make books, buildings, and ships, among other uses, for centuries. Properly they are an easily renewed resource and our efforts are bettor focused on more important concerns.
Eco-Libris
The author’s objective clearly is to utilize renewable resources, preserve our environment, and recycle. He’s not putting paper books and e-books into competition against one another.