Claire and I work at being green. We both buy our veggies from the same organic service (ParadiseO, tell them we sent you!) and strive to reduce, re-use and recycle. Truthfully though, Claire is in a different league. When she re-landscaped, she chose succulents and water tolerant plants; when you see my garden, you’ll think “English.” When they stripped out the grass to replace it with a more environmentally-friendly type, she watered the dirt and waited for the weeds to grow and be pulled rather than use a herbicide. Let’s just say that never would have occurred to me. She composts; when I mentioned composting to our landscaper she laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and said “let’s work on watering the pots regularly.” Claire gave up meat for a year for environmental reasons; I try not to have any meat until dinner, but mostly for caloric purposes.
We’ve talked about the used book quandary – they’re better for the environment because a book is being reused, but not so good for the author who doesn’t get a cut of that transaction. Claire is an author. Eco-Libris provides the answer, buy a tree for every book you read to balance out the paper used to manufacture the book. Eco-Libris also works with publishers to promote the sustainable production of books. Now, they are combing the two and adding an extra incentive for readers to participate:
- Customers who balance out 25 books at Eco-Libris will receive a $10 gift card for Strand Bookstore in New York City (one of the world’s best independent bookstores). These cards are good for any in-store or online purchases and they never expire.
- For customers who will balance out 50 books, Eco-Libris will send a gift - a choice of “green” book, printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. Customers will be offered to choose from a list of 5-6 books that will be changing occasionally. The books are from last November’s green campaign; we loved our copy of From Green to Gold by Harold Enrico.
- Customers who will balance 100 books will receive a$25 gift card for BookSwim, a Netflix-style book rental library service, lending you paperbacks, hardcovers and college textbooks.
Help the environment and get rewarded for it, what could be better?
Claire
Kim
