By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
E-books vs. real books: on the sustainability scale which wins? E-book readers are, in my opinion, not sustainable.
E-book readers, whether the Amazon Kindle, or whichever else, are NOT sustainable and that regardless of what industry and most green media even would want us to believe. The e-book, as a PDF document, downloaded to your computer is a different story and we will get to those at a later stage.
E-book readers are, predominately, made of non-renewable and thus non-sustainable resources and in addition to that they need a power source in the form of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. This battery too is made from rare and non-renewable materials. As already said, the e-book in the “portable document format” (PDF) downloaded and read on a computer or printed out, and bound maybe even, the latter the option that I often chose, is a different story altogether.
While it is true that a e-book reader can hold hundreds and even thousands of books I have to as at what cost, and especially cost to the environment, to the Planet.
The lifespan or life expectancy of such a device is how long? Not very and its obsolescence is pre-programmed. At best an e-book user in constant use will last maximum three to, if lucky, five years, and no more.
At that high cost to the environment and the purchaser I see the Kindle and its rivals as but a passing fad. Printable e-books in PDF may be the future of publishing and book buying. The e-book reader, on the other hand, is not the future of the book. It will past just some other fads of time gone by.
The environmental credentials of the e-book readers are definitely not what they are being made out to be by industry and much if not indeed most of the green media.
An e-book reader is made from often toxic materials that are not kind to the environment most of the time and that just for starters.
I really hate to have to put the damper on the e-book reader hype but I don't think it is going to cut it. The claims are mostly nothing but greenwash and it is such as shame that so many green media outlets also have fallen for it.
The e-book, in a generally readable format, whether “Word”, or “PDF”, ot “RTF”, that can be opened and read on any computer, whether Windows, Mac or Linux, and printed from it, is a good alternative to the printed book; the e-book reader, of whatever make, is not. It just does not cut it as regards to “green credentials” and is but a gadget; a gadget that most of us can well do without.
The e-book, in general, in the normal ordinary computer-readable formats mentioned above, is to publishing, to some degree, much like what MP3 downloads are for music, from flyers, pamphlets, papers, and magazines to small and large volume books. However, not necessarily so much for their green credentials as reading matter but for their green credentials as fas as publishing and “shipping” goes.
A great many people will still, in order to be able to conveniently read the document or book print out a copy and, maybe, even bind it in some way rather than read it on the computer or such.
On the other hand, the printed book will not disappear because once the fad of the e-book reader is history people will want the printed book again more than ever.
We have discussed in a previous article also the fact that, as far as Amazon is concerned and some other suppliers, you never own the book that you have downloaded, despite the fact that you have payed for it. They just regards you as having bought a license, limited even, to store and read the book on your e-book reader.
This was shown by Amazon's action a year or so ago when they wiped the content of most Kindle readers remotely because the considered that the people no longer were requiring the books.
Sorry, but if I buy something and pay for it it is mine to do with as I please, within the copyright restrictions, as far as books and music are concerned. Not for the seller to decide that I no longer need it and thus clear it from my virtual library.
The printed book is not dead though publishing and distribution may, to some degree, change.
© 2011
