A love of nature and lifelong habits of re-using paper, where possible, impacts my purchasing and use of paper. Though as far as print books I’ve published, I’d yet to address it. I sat and made a plan, tackling the issue from various angles and here’s what I came up with…
The service I use to publish enables me to produce books affordably (for readers and myself). The ink is chlorine-free, the paper stock is 90gsm acid-free and supplied by a Forest Stewardship Council-certified provider. It is a print-on-demand service, so only what is needed is printed. I’ve made other choices to align with this:
- Create some digital-only projects for download (coming in 2021-2022)
- Offer other formats besides print (ebooks available)
- Write shorter fiction novels (25k / 50 pages less)
- Choose the smallest print dimension available more often (like Spirals)
Along with other habits around my home/garden it is but a tiny contribution towards waste reduction, though together our small part creates a much greater wave of effort towards waste reduction. I’m including digital formats at lower cost and encourage people to pass on their books (if they’ve no wish to keep them) to a free book shelf, charity or shop. There are non-wood alternatives to paper and these are being used, hopefully in the near future they will become the norm for all publishing / printing services.
I purchase fewer books overall and a third of them digital (I still prefer print books), so I reduce my consumption of paper elsewhere. We repurpose cardboard recycling for packaging and gardening. Paper stock is saved to write on – mostly for drafting a book, journalling or letter writing. We’ve reduced our overall printing and I hold onto notebooks/diaries, printouts others in the house release, to make use of it.
What fun ways do you re-purpose paper?
Louise
louise ann knight 