Back to School Week -- Textbooks
Rise to the top of the class with our smart suggestions for kicking off a green school year.
Tip #3: Recycle Textbooks
A recent study of the American publishing industry estimates that from forest to landfill, the book business emitted about 12.4 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. Resize that carbon footprint by opting for used textbooks. Web sites such as Bookbyte.com, Campus Book Swap, and Buy Used Textbooks offer opportunities to buy and sell books. Want to your purchasing power to do double-duty? Pick up that required copy of The Catcher in the Rye from Better World Books and your money will help fund literacy programs worldwide. Better World Books also accepts donations of "no value" books; according to their Web site, they've saved 6,500 tons of books from landfills.
Why not check at your local library's Book Corner. Usually textbooks are not accepted for sale, but you might find plenty of books that your (younger) child might need to read for school.
It's a win-win-win situation, in which (1) you can declutter your shelves, (2) buy books in good condition inexpensively, and (3) maybe even donate books to your child's library or organization that would benefit from new books.
Posted by: Eva Santorini | September 10, 2008 at 04:42 PM
Check out www.bookcrossing.com. The book you want might be in your neighborhood.
Posted by: Gloria Picchetti | September 10, 2008 at 04:47 PM
Bookcrossing is great, but paperbackswap.com has over 2 million posted books. You can find lots of great books there and get rid of ones you don't want at the same time.
Posted by: Audrey Lassiter | September 10, 2008 at 06:25 PM
Why not donate your used college textbooks to the college library and help those who can't even afford used textbooks.
Posted by: Cathy Bourgeois | September 11, 2008 at 05:49 AM
Does anyone know where old language books from middle school can be recycled? These books are obsolete at our local school but still full of good info. Surely someone can use them.
Posted by: yogabee | September 11, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Yogabee, There are groups of home schoolers who might be able to use your middle school language books. When I was home schooling my children, we bought all of our textbooks for a minimal amount of money, or swapped with others in the group.
Posted by: eighthowes | September 16, 2008 at 01:36 AM
Recycle textbooks is a great idea. You can save alot of money and you can also buy more books you wanted.
Posted by: Utah Valley University | October 13, 2008 at 09:46 PM
Save Money, Save The Planet
GreenTextbooks.org specializes in the recycling of textbooks, DVDs, CDs. Buying used textbooks not only saves you money, but cuts down on greenhouse gases caused by the manufacturing of new textbooks.
With GreenTextbooks.org you're not only saving trees, your saving some green. http://www.greentextbooks.org
Posted by: green | December 23, 2008 at 01:44 AM
A great place to recycle your old textbooks is AbellaBooks.com is the place to buy and sell new and used cheap discount textbooks, DVDs, CDs, general reading, and reference titles.
http://www.abellabooks.com
Posted by: abella books | December 28, 2008 at 09:02 PM
I would suggest buying at Textbook Ace
TextbookAce.com sells new and used college textbooks for all subjects at great prices. They wrote the book on textbooks! They have been buying and selling used textbooks since 1995, and currently stock over 500,000 textbooks in their warehouse.
They also offer an array of novels, professional textbooks, teacher's editions, study guides, and K-12 (elementary and secondary).
http://www.textbookace.com
Posted by: textbook | January 05, 2009 at 06:56 PM