Materials required. Depending on whether print books are hardcover or paperback copies, a durable or thinner cardboard stock paper is used. Additional materials include the ink that is necessary for printing.

Manufacture of Print Books. Only 2 kilowatt hours of energy are required to produce a physical copy of the print book and a 100 times fewer emissions of greenhouse gases as compared to that of e-readers are involved at this stage as well.

Transportation Costs. It is important to distinguish between books we pick up at the bookstore and books ordered online to be mailed to our doorsteps, as additional costs to our environment are incurred in the process. Some researchers believe that books as ordered online are flown or shipped over to the many countries that online bookstores such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble deliver to, this increases the environmental impact of print books through the steady plumes of gas emitted from aeroplanes and ships.

However, conflicting findings as seen in this same point on the tab of the Negative Environmental Impact of print books have not been resolved.

Usage of Print Books. One research found that reading print books actually has the same environmental impact as reading 100 books on one’s e-reader before upgrading it. This diminishes the argument that most quickly jump to in our increasingly ecologically aware world today – that by simply buying books in digitised form is the greener option.

That said, the largest positive environmental impact of print books derives from their consumption from one’s public library and the eco-friendliness of such behaviour would be increased if one walks to the library as well!

Disposal of Print Books. In a study done by Dr Shimizu Hirokazu, a visiting senior researcher at Waseda Univeristy’s Environmental Research Institute, out of 5,000 print books studied, 3,000 copies were sold while the 2,000 unsold copies (479.837 kg) were entirely recycled. Furthermore, out of the 3,000 copies sold, 660 copies (158.346 kg) were incinerated while the majority number of 2,340 copies (561.409 kg) were recycled. That totals up to 1,041.246 kg of paper from books being recycled as opposed to being simply incinerated!