Which Is Greener: An eBook Or Paperbacks?

Having recently bought a Kindle (because my home is overrun with the books I read), I began wondering if the Kindle was greener than buying books.

I've looked through a number of articles online, and it seems that eReaders are only greener if you use one for reading a minimum of 23 books but, in reality, probably more than 60 (to cover all environmental impacts, not just the carbon footprint). That's 60 books over the lifetime of the eReader, not per year.

For those interested in how this is worked out, a good, in-depth, 6 page summary pdf can be found here.

Of course, you could just go down the library for your books. That's always going to be greener....as long as you don't drive there ;)