Eco-Libris Provides Great Green Travel Books

If you haven’t already found the website, Eco-Libris is a wonderful eco lovin’ site dedicated to balancing out the harm we do by reading books.

Now, before you click away, I know that sounds a bit hippy and greenie but as an avid book reader I often have the guilts at my own frivolous indulgence and the number of trees it takes to feed my habit, but – and here comes the excuse, or should I say, reason – where would we be without them?

Books provide an education; something so desperately sought by people who aren’t lucky enough to have it and shunned by those who are given it freely. Reading encourages debate, entices the imagination and offers the chance of escape. And, even with the growing popularity of the internet, most people prefer a good book. Well, you can’t very well snuggle up in bed with a home PC, can you?

But to have our precious books, Eco-Libris reports, “about 20 million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper to be used for the production of books sold in the US alone.” It’s frightening to think of the number of trees used for book publishing world-wide.

Eco-Libris encourages publishers, bookstores, readers and anyone involved in the book industry to balance out the paper used for books by planting a tree for every book read. This week, they feature Disappearing Destinations:37 Places in Peril and What Can Be Done to Help Save Them, something that’s sure to interest EcoTravelLogue readers.

There are other ways to reset the balance, too. Many publishing companies now use recycled materials in printing and vegetable/soy ink instead of petroleum-based products, a practice driven by many authors as well as the industry. The UK-based Green Books, which publishes the popular Organic Places to Stay in the UK, and Markam Publishing, responsible for the recent ecoescape guides, both employ green practices and have had high praise for doing so.

In the future, it would be great if all publishing companies decide take a trip down the green brick road so bookworms the world over can sleep easy at night, well, that is unless they’ve landed a precious impossible-to-put-down read.