I don't own these electronic thingies but I can see they're practical, specially comparing to the weight of books if you wanted to carry many of them with you.
I have always loved books though, including touching them and knocking on their covers with my fingernails and smelling the pages again and again when they're new. And I find them more comfortable for the eyes.

For me...paperbacks are still good. Because paperbacks are something you can treasure for the rest of your life. Digital books are something disposable despite of its convenience. And I think I don't like the idea of it.

@cieron: paperbacks are just as easily disposable as digital books, albeit with greater consequences. Paperbacks will end up in the landfill or recycling plants and cost trees to make. A digital book only takes a few mb of your harddrive and disposed doesn't cost a thing.

How many trees does making a hard drive take? I bet its a lot of books, actually. Just playing voice of reason on that one.

@thefool: a hard drive consists mainly of wire, metal, and plastic. A hard drive doesn't consist of of a lot of trees, if any.

That was taken too literally. Wire, metal, plastic. How much non renewable resources and energy goes into a hard drive vs. books? Not to mention all the overhead costs of the R&D of the device its self.

I have no clue what the answer is, I just want to point out that nothing is free

@thefool: Yet I was pointing at the disposable natures of the book vs the hard drive, not the production cost.

A book, regardless of its production cost, once dumped will be landfill and/or recycle material.

An ebook on the other hand, once disposed, is merely deleted from the hard drive and memory space is restored.

It would than be cheaper and more environmental friendly to get a hard drive with 100 ebooks than gather 100 paper books.

Exactly. And since you will have the hard drive regardless of whether you own e books or not, its more environmental friendly

I disagree with you both, I'm afraid. Hard drives contain toxic materials and are rarely disposed of properly. You may save a landfill 100 paper books, but I'd trade a ton of paper sitting in my backyard for 3 oz. of lead and mercury any day of the week. I don't know the energy equation here. At some point you buy so many books that they become less energy efficient (or in this case, environmentally impact efficient), but I am not sure where that line is. Of course, both become far more efficient if you recycle them.... books are more recyclable than ebooks by a WIDE margin (IE: Selling them to a used book store reclaims 100% of the value of the book). Whereas even if you recycle the entire ebook unit, based on what I know, it's probably saves 75% of the mfg cost. Aluminum saves ~83%.

So basically you'd need to figure out how much pollution is used to create 1 book. How much is used to create 1 ebook. How much leftover pollution is created by the disposal of both. Somewhere in there is a number of books you must purchase before it is environmentally more friendly to purchase an ebook over a regular book. I don't have the tools (or the time) to figure that one out Maybe someone can research it a little and give an answer?

It's the battery of the unit that is likely the biggest pollution source. Probably contains some mercury as well.

@thefool: Why are you comparing the disposable nature of a hard drive vs books when the point I was making was purely ebooks vs paper books?

That is all I'm concerned with at this point since this was in reference to cieron's post concerning the disposable natures of books vs ebooks.

Though I feel I should point out that recycling a paper book takes more energy than deleting an ebook or moving it around a harddrive. To recycle a paperbook requires resources to turn it into something else like toilet paper. To 'recycle' an ebook generally means moving it to another location of the hard drive or deleting it, which again cost next to nothing. While its possible to sell back a paper book, you're most likely not going to recuperate the cost as most of the time one would have to sell it at a lost. Unless the book in question was valuable or you swindled someone to buy it at a high price, one is most likely not going to recuperate 100% the sell value.

Looking at it from your wallet and the environment way, an ebook looks a lot better than a paperback. An ebook doesn't take any physical space, requires no energy to delete/move around on a harddrive and/or email, and is cheaper than a paperback.

And really, if one was so worried about the hard drive being so poisonous, I'm sure that person would have learned about the 'green' environmentally friendly hard drives/flash drives and know how to dispose of them properly.

I think the problem here is some are comparing paper books to ebooks, while some are comparing paper books to ebook readers.

Of course, an ebook, itself, has no environmental impact, since it is virtual.

I don't understand why someone would dispose of the reader (other than it being broken), so when comparing environmental impact, I guess you would compare the manufacturing.

What is the environmental impact (energy use, waste, etc.) of creating 1,000 paperback books as opposed to the impact of creating one e-reader?

KTC started with the environmental impact side of this!

You will dispose of your reader. It will break eventually, the battery will die, the screen will crack, ect. The only question that remains is how many books will you e-read before it does and will that be more or less than the impact of the disposal.

Books are kinda sacred objects, we don't just throw them into the trash for the most part. They end up in used book stores and sidewalk sales or in my attic. A book has to be in pretty bad shape to end up in a landfill.

I do think ebooks are superior, I remind you, it's just not flawless

Oh and it's not ME I am worried about when it comes to proper disposal; its all the people who really don't know or care... which is pretty much everyone else.

@thefool: I started with an ebook is more easily disposable than a paper back.

You are the one who suddenly jumped on the hard drive vs a paperback. Not the thing I was pointing out.

We're discussing 2 different issues.

Also, one doesn't need to use an ebook reader to read ebooks. Any computer [i believe iphones can work also] works just fine and if it happens to have a kindle emulator, you can read those books just fine too.

Since most people at this point have a computer, laptop, iphone, or some sort of electronic device with the capability to read ebooks - ebooks again sound much better than a regular book.

As KTC says, no one will buy a computer to read e books. They'll already have one which means they only have to download e books. And this causes no pollution(except for usage of energy).

@theone: i didn't say that. I'm sure some people will and have bought it.

But if the discussion is on what's storing the ebook, than we might as well make it more complete by saying what else can hold it ie ebook reader, computer, laptop, iphone, mp3 player, cell phone,palm pilot, etc.

I vastly prefer paperback books. It's just not the same, reading on a screen. Pretty much all of my family uses e-readers except for me, and they try to get me to use them... no. Besides, I have horrible vision and can hardly read on a screen and I get headaches from it. Easily.

Although I do know that someday books are going to become extinct.

you are right. but a con for BOTH is getting car sick from reading them while in a moving car or veical!

actually, I don't get sick from reading either in a moving vehicle so YMMV.

I'm surprised I haven't added to this discussion! Basically, I like a real book in my hands. It becomes difficult for me to complete an electronic book, and a lot of it is because it is a lot harder to see how far I am. Besides that, I can't check how far until the next chapter, I can't easily skip a few pages in a boring book, and the format of electronic books often leaves a lot to be desired. Eventually I could see myself using eBooks as a viable alternative to the paper version, but I don't think the technology is there yet. However, I have not yet tried reading on my iPad, so it may well be a lot better than the Kindle that I used for awhile.

When it comes to the whole environmental issue, I kind of think it's a moot point. Paper books are more safely disposed of when it comes to that, but electronics are used for so much more, and are also unlikely to ever be thrown out unless they break (and then they're usually sent in for repair, although "repair" often just means replacement). I don't think it even matters in the first place, anyways.

And for travel, I think the eBook would be a lot more convenient if I actually used it, considering I take my iPad with me all the time when I travel. There's then the trade-off; an electronic device can easily be lost or damage while traveling, and a mass-market paperback can be easily replaced. Plus there's nothing like sitting on a beach with a paperback in your hands, enjoying the story and the atmosphere, something that not only feels wrong with an eBook, but also is dangerous for it. Sand and saltwater ain't good for anything with an off button.

...I like how ain't is not counted as incorrect. XD

Imo, paperbacks are easier to lose/damaged than ebooks because ebooks can be copied onto various electronic devices. Particularly if the paperback is small.

And with online/portable storages like dropbox.com/flashdrives, its pretty much guaranteed that as long as you have some type of storage, your book is safe.

however with a paperback - can get misplaced, lost, easily damaged, pages ripped out (library books ugh), etc.

As for reading on a beach: water can damage the book also lol.

Personally, I'm partial to both formats and depending on my goal, prefer one over the other.

Textbooks - If I can read from a paperbook, i do because I get horribly distracted by computers.

For pleasure: either will do. So many good stories (hi fanfic) on the net too = reading online all the time.