Since my last post was about a green way to re-purpose old books, I thought it would be appropriate for this post to be about green books in a completely different context. Eco-Libris is an online company with a really great green vision: enabling people to balance out every book they buy by planting a new tree in its place.
I’m sure you realize that books are made from trees, but you might not realize just how many trees. From the Eco-Libris website:
More than 30 Million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. That’s definitely a problem – trees are one of the most valuable natural resources we have. They literally form the foundations of many natural systems and provide us with numerous benefits (carbon dioxide absorption, soil and water conservation, avalanche control, desertification prevention to name a few).
Volunteer with coconut seedlings ready for transplanting in Belize
So, Eco-Libris partners with non-profit groups in Africa and Central America to plant trees in developing countries for the benefit of both the environment and local communities. They’ve chosen regions where deforestation is a crucial problem and where the tree-planting not only helps to combat this issue, but also provides jobs and hope to the local residents. All you have to do is to choose how many books you want to balance out with Eco-Libris, pay for it online, and they take care of the rest. For each tree you plant, Eco-Libris sends you a sticker made from recycled paper that you can put on the cover of the books you balance out, to show your commitment to the environment (and hopefully also inspire those who see it to take responsibility for their books as well!)
Possibly the best part of all this? It only costs $1 per book. Less, if you offset more at a time. For example, balancing out 5 books costs $5, but balancing out 500 only costs $450. If you have enough money to buy the book, you have enough money to plant the tree that can balance it out. And you don’t even have to lift a shovel!
Catherine and Jefferson Chirwa near the Mwaya tree nursery in Nkhata Bay District in Northern Malawi
Not only all this, but currently they’re offering several gifts for different levels of balancing as well. For example, if you balance 100 books you get a $25 gift card for BookSwim, a Netflix-style book rental/library service, that lends paperbacks, hardcovers and college textbooks. How can you beat that? =)
They also have a great blog with reviews of green literature and news about sustainable developments in the book world, as well as videos, giveaways and gift-guides (and more!) If you’re a bibliophile like me, you will definitely want to subscribe to their RSS feed.
Check them out. They’re a green hero you really should get to know.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Eco-Libris, Cheli Cresswell. Cheli Cresswell said: Green hero you should know: Eco-Libris – http://tinyurl.com/2b5ug4w [...]