Don't Buy Books at Bookstores

Dang! Did you see this in today's Green Lantern at Slate?

If you're not ready to plunk down $139 for a Kindle or $499 for an iPad, or you just love the feel of dead tree between your fingers, there's one thing you can do to significantly ease the environmental impact of your reading: Buy your books online. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are horribly inefficient because they stock way more books than they can sell. Between one-quarter and one-third of a bookstore's volumes will ultimately be shipped back to the publisher and on to recycling centers or landfills. The carbon footprint of the average book purchased in a bookstore tops 15 kg of CO₂ equivalents, more than twice the overall average for books.


Oh, and e-readers are better for the environment than dead tree books as well.