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As a public library & used bookstore junkie, I'm biased in favor of paper books for a number of reasons--pretty much covered in other comments above. Yes, we could save trees by printing fewer copies of those hard-cover best-sellers. And can e-books be useful? Enjoyable? Sure, it sounds like there are reasons to have them available.

However . . . here we are, jumping on yet another hard-plastic electronic gadget bandwagon, with minimal discussion of environmental impact - and with the plastics market still in crash mode. How many obsolete Kindles are going to be recycled when the next generation and/or competing products show up? It's not as though we have a good track record when it comes to dealing with this stuff; our landfills and thrift stores already have plenty of electronic media (and vinyl!), much of it still usable when it was tossed.

When the retail cost of new electronics includes future recycling costs, and when they are fully recyclable, and when every one of us actually makes sure our discards are recycled, then we can claim a breakthrough. Until then, well, it's nice to have an optional format for a book, but the long-term impacts may not be so positive. See you at Powell's!

posted 3 years ago
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