Ironically, in the book (on paper made from trees) the Lorax once said, “I speak for the trees for the trees have no voices to speak for themselves.” But who speaks for the materials in the environment that make the e-books? And which one is actually better for the environment: paper books or digital books (or e-reader and e-books)?

It’s actually a complicated question. Books are made from trees and ink. E-readers are made of plastic, rubber, metal, and glass. One e-reader is equal to 40 to 50 large paper books. In my survey* 77.11% respondents believed that e-readers are better for the environment. But in actuality both of them are equally harmful to the environment. However, both of them have pros and cons for the environment.

Paper books come from trees but it isn’t quite as simple as that. There are multiple processes that go into turning the thing you climb into the thing you read. Processes include timber preparation, pulping, bleaching, refining, sheet forming, coating drying and calendaring, and cutting and packaging. Ink production includes pigment production, vehicles, and modifiers. As people think, there are trees cut down in the processes of making books. In fact one average sized tree is equal to 8,333.3 sheets of larger copy paper. This makes about 16 large sized books.

However, people tend to like books for the physicality of them. Being able to hold, smell, and physically touch the words appeals to people. Being able to write in books also appeals to those who think that touching and typing on a screen just doesn’t have the same feel. People also tend to get attached to paper books and keep books for years.

E-readers are pretty complicated feats of technology. These Kindles and Nooks are hugely popular in the US (with 70.24% of my respondents owning one). People like being able to have their whole library with them at all times. They also like the lightness of the e-readers instead of having to haul around pounds of books.

As stated before, e-readers are made of plastic, rubber, metal, and glass. The metals, plastics, and rubber are all produced or mined in 3rd world countries. Then these metals go to another 3rd world country to be put together in factories under dangerous conditions. The completed e-readers are then shipped overseas to Barnes and Nobles, for example, or to any other American company which sends them out to consumers. The price of gas and transportation have a greater effect than paper books are. Include in this equation that consumers tend to use e-readers the same way they use phones: when there is something new they get the better version of it. So, in fact, most people only keep their e-readers for 2 to 3 years.

Luckily there is an organization out in the world that has already taken the effects of these things into consideration. The LCA, Life Cycle Assessment, analyzes the environmental costs of a product through its entire life. It goes through material production, product manufacturing, product distribution, product use, and end-of-life management (so pretty much everything I described above).

When Johann Gutenburg invented the printing press in the early Renaissance, he would have had no idea how much his invention would change the world. It is estimated that there are 120,096 libraries in the US alone. In my survey I found that 26.19% owned more than 50 books; another 26.19% owned at least 100 books; and 25% owned so many books they couldn’t count them all. This proves that the majority of individuals still own paper books.

It really comes down to the consumer which to decide form of reading one is going to be more destructive to the environment. As Gandalf once said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

*I created a survey in my free time to see what the general public thought about e-readers and paper books. In my survey I got a response from 84 individuals who were pretty big readers actually. In my seven question survey I discovered the amount of paper books people owned, how many books people read on their e-readers and in paper books.