Recycle a Book

Benefits

Environmental Benefit: ★★★☆☆
Reading a book that was purchased used has very little environmental impact!

Money Saved: ★★★☆☆
Used books can be borrowed free from friends, or purchased for usually less than half price from used book dealers.

Lifestyle Benefit: ★★★★★
Once you get hooked on a books your TV will get lonely. Hopefully you can still spare some time for your family and work! And used books are just as fun to read as new ones (sometimes more).

What We’re Doing
Well, one environmental impact I didn't mention earlier can be that with an accumulation of old books you end up needing lots of bookshelves and boxes to keep them in. Ideally you would continue recycling the books to others, but it can be hard to give them up! Our local library has a bookstore where the sell books no longer needed for just a buck or two for hardbacks. We also have a "Half-Price Books" chain that has good prices on used books, movies, and music. They don't give you much on your trade-ins but at least they'll go to another good home! I also enjoy listening to audio books while driving. You can get older (copyright free) audio books to download for free from http://www.librivox.org/ . Myself, I can recycle a book just by reading it again a year later, since my memory is so poor that they seem like new again! Seems like the e-readers like Kindle would be a great solution to the storage problem as well as the waste of trees - haven't tried that yet.

A Little Humor
GOOD RECYCLER: You recycle not only your newspapers but also your phone books, magazines, and cardboard boxes.

NOT SO GOOD: You leave your newspapers in the bathroom stall at work after you're done. Doesn't that count?