The Kindle

I read alot. Alot alot. I read so much, in fact we both read so much that we must keep the local charity shops going just by the number of books we buy and give back to them. I don't always give the books back, some I like to keep and read again and again. We don't have the biggest house in the World so we can only keep so many before our house starts looking like a library. We already have quite a few shelves.

I thought the answe to the issue of not just storage of books but also the eco credentials of books i.e. the cost to the environment in just the paper along must be huge so I asked for and received one of these little lovelies for my birthday...

 

Amazon

My hubby just doesn't understand how I could and it is a bit of a joke between us in our household. Jon says that he could never make the switch, he likes the look and the feel of a book. I do too but I read so much I just thought it made sense one little device for shelves and shelves of books.

So..... to keep the banter alive my husband sends me this link to an article....

 

Despite the notion that if you read enough books on them, they'll have a lighter footprint than printed books, the reality is something less appealing altogether.

"Necessarily, the increased consumption of print and digital books has led to an ever-increasing demand for the materials required to create, transport, and store them. In the case of eBooks, though, vast amounts of materials are also necessary for the eReaders themselves, and this is something typically overlooked by proponents of digitization: the material costs are either ignored, or, more misleadingly, they’re classified as the byproduct of the tech industry instead of the book industry... In other words: the carbon footprint of the digital book industry is mostly growing in addition to, not to the detriment of, the growing carbon footprint of the print book industry."

Read the article for yourself here: Treehugger

So what do I think? Hmmmm now I am not so sure. Man it is hard trying to do the right thing. I have no intention of getting rid of my kindle any time soon, I am not really a gadgety person so I can see myself having it for a long haul and I will look after it so I can't see it going off to landfill any time soon. This bit is me:

Unless you are both an incredibly avid reader as well as someone who cares for their gadgets and does not replace or upgrade to new models, e-readers just simply don't live up to the lighter footprint they promise. Instead, we should stick with our library cards.

 So I guess I am OK.... for now. I so know where the phrase comes from.....