When it comes to being eco-friendly, books don’t really make the grade. All that paper depletes our forests and rarely are books made from recycled paper and books are a heavy item to ship as well. But luckily there are eco-friendly solutions that are no-brainers.

Visit the library: So very retro, right? The library always has been and hopefully always will be an eco-friendly and budget-friendly way to read. If you don’t have a library card yet or haven’t been to the library in ages, do it now. September is the American Library Association’s Library Card Sign-Up month.

Swap online: Booksfree.com is like the Netflix of the book world. For $11 a month, you can borrow two paperbacks and keep a running wish list. Shipping to and from your home is included in your membership fee, and since they are paperbacks the carbon cost will be lower. Sites like this are a good book-sharing option if you can’t deal with library due dates. The site has over 200,000 titles ranging from the classics to the newest titles.

Get a Kindle: While the eco factor of electronic books has been long debated, a recent analysis by the Cleantech Group says that over the lifecycle of a Kindle, the carbon emissions are still less than reading traditional books. But if you don’t buy very many books each year, it’ll take much longer for the benefit to even out. The study showed that the breaking point was 22.5 books.

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Looking for a fun way to teach your kids about saving the earth? Earthwise Kids has three eco-friendly storybooks to do just that. It’s never too early to encourage your child to be an eco advocate so put these stories into heavy bedtime rotation. In Protect the Ocean, Tippy the turtle offers eco-friendly advice explaining why keeping the beach clean is so important for preserving his home.

What’s great about this series, versus any old other children’s book with a green message, is that they’re made in a green way, too. Traditional books, which by nature, aren’t very eco-friendly considering the trees needed to manufacture them. But these are made using recycled paper and soy-based inks, and since they’re paperbacks the carbon cost of shipping is less because they weigh less. Each book is also packaged in a biodegradable, reusable jute bag.

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Daily Greenz #98

    As an eco-friendly bookworm, you try to off-set your need to read by borrowing from your local library or buying from used bookstores like www.strandbooks.com.  But considering that publishers cut down 20 million trees each year to produce new books, you want to do more.  With the recent partnership of Eco-Libris and BookMooch, you now can.

The two services have joined their philosophies to allow a free exchange of used books (BookMooch) with planting a tree for every dollar donated to the cause (Eco-Libris).  In this case, members can earn a BookMooch point for every $10 they donate to Eco-Libris, allowing them to mooch a book online for free.  Since Eco-Libris’s philosophy is to plant one tree for every book you read since every book you read was once a tree, each dollar you give to the cause is really just another way to ensure that books will last forever.  What bookworm can resist such an eco-friendly guarantee?  So start reading and planting at www.ecolibris.net and www.bookmooch.com.

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Daily Greenz #40

If you’ve ever stressed about being green, put your fears aside. Josh Dorfman teaches you how to be well fed, well coiffed, well dressed, and well traveled while remaining "deeply committed to and ecologically sustainable lifestyle."
His book, The Lazy Environmentalist, provides guidance for fashion-forward consumers who are as
concerned about the long-term health of our planet as they are about the design of their bathroom fixtures.

Apparently, green can be quite stylish.
We told you so.

Find this book for $10.17 at Amazon.com.

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