Kindle and the Environment

Six colleges and universities—Princeton, Arizona State, Case Western, Pace, Reed College, and UVA’s Darden Business School—are piloting the distribution of Kindle DXs to students and allowing them to download textbooks for select courses. Princeton has indicated that the Kindle pilot is part of the university’s efforts at greater sustainability, while Darden’s associate dean has gone on record saying that the Kindle may be key to the school achieving its carbon neutral goal by 2020.

But the big question for me is: Is using a Kindle really more environmentally friendly that reading paper books?

Let’s looks at this question from a basic cradle-to-cradle perspective: raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, and end-of-life (i.e. recycling/disposal):

Raw Materials: By eliminating the need for paper, the Kindle saves tons of trees compared to books, and everyone makes note of this fact. However, the Kindle requires oil-derived plastics as well as a variety of metals that must be mined, so the relative environmental impact is not clear.

Manufacturing: The papermaking process is very energy and water intensive. And undoubtedly, paper mills use large amounts of toxic solvents, chlorinated compounds, and biocides to bleach and treat paper, plus a significant amount of waste and air emissions are produced in the process. But keep in mind, the electronics manufacturing process is not exactly a clean process either. No clear winner here.

Transportation: By converting paper books to electrons, the Kindle is reducing the number of books that get transported between book manufacturers, bookstores, and consumers. However, the shipping of raw materials needs to be considered as well. For example, the base components of the Kindle E Ink display are made in New England then shipped to Asia for finishing, then shipped for Kindle assembly somewhere else, then shipped back to an Amazon warehouse in the US…and that’s just the screen!

Use: During the purchase phase, the Kindle wins since books don’t need to be transported. However, in the actual use of a book (i.e. reading), the old paper book wins; no electricity is needed and no batteries are consumed.

End of Life: At end of life, it’s worth noting that paper is 100% recyclable, and books are 100% reusable. The same cannot be said about the Kindle. The plastics in electronics are not easily recycled, and electronics in general have a variety of heavy metals, toxins, and batteries that can be quite hazardous when they are not disposed of properly.

Overall, someone would have to do a very detailed lifecycle analysis to determine the true environmental impact of a Kindle. And while there are many legitimate reasons to buy a Kindle, “saving the environment” is not an obvious one.