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Amazon Kindle 2
The other day our friends over at Obessable took a look at the new Kindle from Amazon, and were very impressed. A Kindle is an electronic book reader that doesn't use back lighting and many say feels quite a bit like a book. (For those—like me—who live outside the US, there are other options like Sony's eReader or iRex's iLiad.)
So, the techies like the Kindle, but what about the greenies? What do they think of e-readers in general?
I took a look around but unfortunately couldn't find any hard data. Of course the obvious savings is in paper—which doesn't just mean trees, but also the toxic chemicals to produce the paper, the ink and the binding. Add to that the transport (at least four trips by my count just to get it to the store) and the shredding that happens to unsold books and you're looking a pretty large carbon footprint per book (which the US Book Industry calculates at 8.85 pounds of carbon per book).
Back when the first version of the Kindle was released in 2007, the initial green greeting was a friendly one with low energy use and rechargeable battery. The response to the new version seem to be about the same.
Of course, it's a computerized device so it probably has many components that require special treatment when it comes to disposal. But given that the new version is significantly thinner and has a much longer battery life, at least there'll be fewer components going into the trash.
Like the folks at Obessable, call me impressed as well.
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At least the rechargeable battery can be recycled after it wears out and can no longer hold a proper charge. (charged up to 1,000 times, last between 2-5 years depending on frequency of use, proper handling). Participating drop off locations can be found at www.call2recycle.org.
A lot has been written on the subject. One of the better papers was done about 5 years ago by Greg Kozak http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS03-04.pdf
My roommate has a subscription to a weekly magazine, which adds up to a LOT of paper. If the Kindle can have that magazine delivered, then that feature alone makes the Kindle greener for us. Also, living in an apartment, the Kindle can save us lots of space that would be otherwise taken up by new books!