Hi all. Master Recycler John Fischer here with KLCC's Living Less Unsustainably.
I love the tactile feel of reading a crisp newspaper, or a dog-eared book. It's nice turning from page to page, re-reading a sentence, and knowing that I have killed another tree or two so that I can have my information delivered in a comfortable familiar way. Yes, the newspaper is recyclable, and books can be resold, or given away, but we have moved past stone tablets, papyrus, and paper into a new digital world. It's time to let the electrons do the talking, and leave our forests alone. A snail mail letter takes fifty times more energy to deliver than an email.
While an e-reader does take energy to produce, and power is used downloading a book, after ten books, the savings make e-reading better, and with more power being sustainable produced by solar panels and wind generators. the break even number is going down.
I subscribe to our local paper, and the hefty New York Times, but only the first comes on paper. The massive Times is all done electronically, so the five percent I read doesn't produce twenty times its weight in excess paper. Paper makes up twenty five percent of the material in landfills, and emits large amounts of methane if it is not recycled properly.
Another option - that you are already using- radio - can have a very low impact - especially if your utility gets its electricity from renewable sources.
As technology gets better, and we get better at using the technology, the value of standing trees for carbon sequestration, shade, and peace of mind will push more of us into the future, and leave the paper past where it should be - sequestering carbon , and providing nesting sites in our forests.
