Published on August 27th, 2008 | by Stephanie Evans

Sign Up for the Sustainable Reading Movement

eBooks, available for download online, are a great eco reading strategy to cut consumption of paper and other planet-intensive resources. What if you just can’t say goodbye to your old friend, those paper reads?

If sitting at your computer every time you want to relax, reflect, and absorb something written doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, there are still
plenty of ways to use and re-use your reading materials:

A Trip to the Local Library

Take a trip to your local library—still an old favorite and earth-friendly place to read without creating waste.
Donate
your used magazines or books to a shelter or school. There are several
organizations dedicated to helping with the distribution of used
magazines: MagazineLiteracy.org is a great place to start.
Use old newspapers as wrapping paper, or in the garden as compost.
Scrap book:
Before recycling magazines, go through and cut out recipes you might
like to try, travel destinations to visit, and design ideas, and put
them into a scrap book.

There are several organizations that support the sustainable reading
movement. To ease your green mind about the books on your shelf right
now, there are several organizations like EcoLibris,
whose aim is to balance out the tree to book ratio. For every 2 books
you volunteer, they plant one tree.

This online community of fellow readers is easy to join and creates a
very simple solution to easing the environmental impact of reading.
EcoLibris partners with book clubs, publishers, authors, and book
stores.

Book Swaps

There is a growing online book swapping community for people who want
the real thing, and want to contribute to reforestation while stopping
the waste cycle. BookMooch
is an international online community for exchanging used books. It has
more than 500,000 members who exchange books for free, using a simple
points system—every time you send someone a book, you earn a point and
can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch.

Other online book swap communities are: PaperBackSwap.com and Bookins.com.