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  (Source: Environblog)
Analysts have the figures to prove it

To make magazines, books, and newspapers, the publishing industry requires approximately 125 million trees per year. There's no doubt that the use of so much paper has negatively impacted the environment, but many are looking to electronic devices like the Kindle to relieve the carbon footprint paper has made, and it just so happens that Kindle's really are environmentally-friendly. 
 
Producing one paperback book is not as bad for the environment as producing one Kindle, but a one-time purchase of a Kindle and downloading books rather than continuously buying paperback's is better for the environment. Buying a Kindle is a good idea (environmentally) for people who will download a large number of books, and who don't trade in gadgets every year. 

According to Cleantech, an environmental consulting firm, a book generates 7.5 kilograms, or 17 pounds, of carbon dioxide equivalents through production, transport and disposal or recycling. A Kindle, on the other hand, generates 168 kilograms, or 371 pounds of carbon dioxide. But according to The Washington Post, the Kindle pays for its carbon dioxide emissions halfway through the consumer's 23rd book. Every time a consumer downloads an electronic book rather than buying a paperback, a small amount of the water and carbon dioxide deficit from Kindle production is paid back.

Kindles win the environmental battle in two key areas: water and toxic chemicals. As far as water is concerned, U.S. newspaper and book industries use 153 billions of water per year. To make a single printed book, it requires seven gallons of water while a digital book requires less than two cups of water. To make a Kindle, 79 gallons of water is needed, but according to recent figures, the Kindle pays off after reading one dozen books. 

Kindles are also environmentally-friendly when it comes to toxic chemicals. Making ink for print mediums releases toxins like xylene, hexane and toluene, some of which can cause cancer, birth defects, asthma and contribute to smog. The Kindle, on the other hand, complies with Europe's RoHS standards, which cuts harmful chemicals in production. 

The Kindle isn't completely innocent, though. The making of a Kindle does require mining of nonrenewable minerals like columbite-tantalite, and some believe we're at risk of exhausting the world's lithium supply, which is what powers the Kindle. 

If you're an avid reader who still enjoys a wall covered in bookshelves complete with all your literary favorites, libraries are a great option since the books are recycled and used over and over again. Although, studies show that libraries are "underutilized" and that the average member checks 7.4 books out per year.

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Enough with the unsubstantiated fear-mongering!
By rtrski on 8/31/2010 9:33:32 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
There's no doubt that the use of so much paper has negatively impacted the environment...


Yet, check the stats for forest coverage since 1990 in the article below. Go ahead, scroll down to the U.S., and see how forest coverage has INCREASED from 1990 to 2005 (last date for which statistics are shown).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/200...

And this from an article ABOUT deforestation*, so you can't claim this is some paper-making-lobby falsified statistics.

So to recap, since the boom economy years of 1990, the U.S. -- I can't prove it but my safe guess is the biggest per-capita user of paper, judging from all the junk mail I get, and our reputation as a consumptive, ad-driven economy -- has grown its forests. (In other words, even if you want to point your fingers at "too much paper use"...books are not the primary culprit, anyway.)

Stop with the B.S. journalism sermons, already.

[*What does the article cite as cause for deforestation? It doesn't provide the relative ratios, but they are conveniently listed in order nonethless: agriculture (ranching is strangely not mentioned, maybe they consider it part of 'agriculture'), land for building (due to population growth), timber for building, and last of all paper products. Care to guess which of those is the smallest factor?

You want to save a tree...not using paper is about the least significant way you can make a difference. One hopes Tiffy will save one by refusing to procreate instead.]




By inighthawki on 9/7/2010 3:15:56 PM , Rating: 2
But you only account for the US. If you add up the columns, you will find that the total number has in fact decreased throughout the entire world. Now this is not to say that it cannot change relatively soon, but focusing only on one part of the planet doesn't prove a point. In fact it may just mean that we are using trees from other countries. You shouldn't jump to conclusions.


RE: Enough with the unsubstantiated fear-mongering!
By rtrski on 9/20/2010 5:15:55 PM , Rating: 2
I know I'm replying very late, so you may never see this (or get to respond) but:

Look at the most significant individual countries that have decreased from left to right: Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Sudan, Tanzania, Venezuela, Zambia.

Now tell me that in those countries they're losing forests because of PAPER PRODUCTS, used for BOOKS, instead of agricultural clearing, ranching, building, or plain old burning wood for heating and cooking. Or lost through "climate change" and not due directly to logging operations. Seriously, I want to see you type that with a straight face.

Brazil's decline alone pretty much amounts for the most significant part of the world-wide 'decrease', and while Brazil is a large and thriving economy with a lot of bright and talented people...somehow I don't think they're vastly exceeding every other country in the world for book production.

Oh noes, Amazon better sell faster, or else the rain-forests will be all gone!! (Insert crying rainbow unicorn picture here).


By rtrski on 9/20/2010 5:31:06 PM , Rating: 2
Better yet, if Tiffy even pretended to be a journalist instead of grinding her must-never-touch-a-tree virginal axe, she'd do a little basic math of her own.

Her own article says 125 million trees are used by the paper industry a year.

A little basic searching says a hectare can have between 0 and 400,000 trees. Let's be conservative and say there's only 40,000 per average logged hectare. That takes 3125 hectares to produce the 125 million trees.

Now look back at my link at Brazil alone. In the 15 years indicated by the columns tree coverage went down from 520k-ish to 477k-ish, or 43k. Is that hectares, you ask? Why no, Virginia, the columns are in THOUSANDS of hectares. Hence 47,000,000 hectares is Brazil's tree reduction.

So according to Tiffy's own stat, the worldwide paper industry's conservatively estimated 3,125 hectares accounts for.... 0.007%. And here I am assuming that a useful, loggable hectare only contains 1/10th the range of possible trees one can expect to find thereon. (And paper trees don't have to be huge, old-growth hardwood...in fact its best if they're not; takes more bleaching.)

So, tell me again how Kindles, by reducing paper use, are saving a significant number of trees?

This article is bunk, plain and simple.


Hmm...
By nvalhalla on 8/31/2010 9:06:54 AM , Rating: 2
I have to wonder how truly "green" saving and recycling paper is. Paper companies figured out a while ago that it's cheaper to own a big chunk of land and just plant new trees on it rather than clear-cutting old growth forests. So when you recycle, or reduce in this case, you decrease demand, so the paper companies plant fewer trees. New trees take CO2 from the air, recycling paper doesn't. Might it make more sense to throw paper away, sinking it in a landfill, and planting trees to take the CO2 out of our atmosphere? (assuming you think atmospheric CO2 levels need to be lowered...)




RE: Hmm...
By FishTankX on 8/31/2010 9:19:12 AM , Rating: 3
It depends on the energy balance of paper production versus recycling. I imagine it's pretty much a wash, given that the steps for both are energy intensive and both require extensive transport.

However, the carbon sequestration of trees is trivial compared to the ocean and the plankton that live within. So I imagine it's not something to seriously get worried about. Alot of the paper we use comes from tree farms anyways.


RE: Hmm...
By FaceMaster on 9/3/2010 7:12:05 AM , Rating: 2
There's more than just wood in paper. I believe that it also requires clay, which isn't quite as renewable.


RE: Hmm...
By phxfreddy on 9/8/2010 12:18:37 AM , Rating: 1
We should be cutting down more trees. Why? Here is the explanation that poor liberal arts major Tiffany is too bone headed of a liberal to understand:

When a tree falls in the forest it rots. Rot is the metabolic outcome of fungus eating the energy in the form of carbohydrates in the tree. When they do so they put out Carbon Dioxide. So EVERY last little bit of CO2 that is taken out of the air is returned to the air.

The only way this does not occur is if it is sequestered in something like a house where the rot is held at bay. ( if then )

But none of this matters to a liberal....why???

Fact is MMGW is a scam. It is successful because it makes untechnical people who lack the skills to be relevant in this ever more technological age are made to feel important by fighting "ManBearPig".

Fact is Tiffany....you need to go back to school and get a real degree if you want to be relevant. You poor sorry excuse for a "technical writer". Fiction suits you better.


RE: Hmm...
By torpor on 9/14/2010 10:15:23 AM , Rating: 2
What if you don't leave the tree rot, genius?
What if you made it into...you know....a book?

Maybe Tiffany is smarter than you after all.


One major assumption
By BBeltrami on 8/31/2010 12:16:41 PM , Rating: 2
For the analysis to be accurate, a kindle subscription must mean a paper subscription ceased. There is no actual evidence provided to support this aspect of the authors claim, just conjecture and math.

Currently print subscriptions, be they newspaper or magazine, are in epic freefall. This in itself is good news for the eco-minded.

But the kindle opens a door to a world of easily accessible and convenient reading materials. It's totally different; the author disregards this. Kindle users download lots of books and magazines that we would never actually buy in printed format.

I mean, think about it from the other direction: If the Kindle and all services were stopped today, does anyone actually believe Kindle users would subscribe to all the print magazines they have in their Kindle and buy paper replacements of the books? Anyone?




RE: One major assumption
By namechamps on 8/31/2010 3:59:34 PM , Rating: 2
Why wouldn't they.

Subscriptions and books cost money. Most people who buy an ebook intend to read it. If they didn't have an ebook they would read a paper book.

Now many the convenience of e-media leads to increased consumption however the idea that people would stop buying books if there were no ebooks is silly.


RE: One major assumption
By zephyrprime on 9/9/2010 11:11:51 AM , Rating: 2
"Currently print subscriptions, be they newspaper or magazine, are in epic freefall. This in itself is good news for the eco-minded."

Isn't that pretty good evidence that a kindle subscription causes a paper subscription to cease? Self pwnage FTW!


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