Green Design Huntress

Books v. Nooks®

“No furniture as charming as books.” - Sydney Smith

I love books, always have and probably always will. As I sit here on the beach in Roatan I see most people reading paperback books in lieu of one of those book readers. Since I am at a resort I am fairly certain most folks own or could own a Nook® if they wanted one. Reading on the beach is just not the same without a paperback novel.

Books help define my life and my décor. I have them in my car, in every room, in book cases, on book shelves, on tables, on the floor, and in baskets. I display most of my books because I love looking at them but also because I need them. When I no longer need them I donate them to my library so they can make some money to buy more books. I also lend them to friends or other lending libraries. I never just throw them away.

So lately I have been thinking about whether all the books in my home are adding to toxicity of my interior environment. Yes, this is the weird kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. I have old books and I have new books and I suspect without doing extensive research that most are made from trees and printed with some sort of toxic ink. I do have several notebooks that are made from alternative sources of paper such as banana leaf but I doubt these alternatives have made big inroads in the publishing industry. However, I know that there is toxic stuff in the readers too and they are not as easily recyclable. Since I am all about efficiency see Parchment Girl’s thoughts below (she did some of the hard work for me). I should get some credit for thinking about these issues and bringing them into the eco-light, right?

http://parchmentgirl.com/articles-and-essays/are-e-readers-environmentally-friendlier-than-paper-books/

Tagged: booksnookstoxic inkpaper wastetrees

Take a tumble with compost bins

http://www.squidoo.com/compost-tumblerbins

Tagged: compostingcompost binswaste reduction