Sunday, September 6, 2009

Environmental sustainability and libraries

"The public library has been called 'one of the seven sustainable wonders of the world.' The written wisdom of the world at the fingertips of anyone with a library card! The average American pays $20 a year in taxes to support public libraries and can save that much by borrowing instead of buying just one or two books. A book that is loaned ten times cuts not only cost but paper use per reader by a factor of ten." Dr. Donella H. Meadows, Dartmouth College, writer, teacher, farmer
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10 comments:

  1. readbooksSeptember 9, 2009 at 10:48 AM

    Libraries have always been leaders in cooperation and collaboration activities. Now they must be leaders in environmental sustainability. What can your library or libraries in general do to increase peoples’ awareness of the importance of environmental sustainability? For instance at the library where I was, I tried to save paper, and other resources and encouraged the students to recycle. When they brought in something that could be recycled, they received a piece of penny candy. The library had many books on the subject for members to check out. The library partnered with the Lawrence County Solid Waste and Recycling Department, passing out their brochures, coloring books and materials, which cover a variety of issues and are applicable for many age groups. We used their display board, borrowing it for a month. The library had programs on subjects related to recycling. The library collected newspapers to recycle also. What does your library do?

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  2. LaurenSeptember 9, 2009 at 1:59 PM

    My library is a drop off point for used batteries , used cellphones, printer cartridges, and hard plastic caps. If a group wants to start a recycling project we give them the space for the dropoff. As a staff, we reuse all the paper that is printed by our patrons but never picked up. So long as it doesn't contain personal information we will print our shipping labels and hold request lists on the back sides. We have another patron who raises puppies so when we are removing old newspapers from the library we call him and he reuses them.

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  3. LaurenSeptember 9, 2009 at 2:01 PM

    While I had noticed that borrowing from a library can save thousands per year over buying the books, it had not occured to me the environmental savings involved. More books borrowed equals less natural resources used in the printing process.

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  4. libraryladySeptember 11, 2009 at 4:54 AM

    Libraries are the original green business. Heck, we re-use every item we circulate. We recycle our materials every time they go out. We also re-use grocery bags for patrons or do a cloth bag distribution. -Diane

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  5. Amy AreySeptember 11, 2009 at 7:33 AM

    The library offers such great services to its community, I'm surprised that more people don't take advantage of it. Because of how libraries reuse materials and recycle materials they set a great example for others to go green.

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  6. LaurenSeptember 11, 2009 at 2:41 PM

    We re-use those grocery bags too!

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  7. bethSeptember 14, 2009 at 11:38 AM

    We use grocery bags too and send our plastic waste (old media cases and the dvd cases that we swap for the security cases) to a recycling center. It's remarkable how much plastic we used to toss in the dumpster.
    We also have a volunteer who enjoys tearing the covers off of withdrawb books so they can go to the township recycling center.

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  8. Kim CantleySeptember 14, 2009 at 8:24 PM

    For the past two years we have been participating in a Friends organization fundraiser that involves collecting ink cartridges for which a company may reimburse our Friends group up to $2.00-a definite win-win situation.

    In January, we also stopped requesting plastic shopping bags through our quarterly supply requests both as a way to save the county money and to "go green." Instead, we have asked people to be sure to bring their own bag or to purchase one of our "recycle" totes for $1.00 (a Friends promotion).

    We have bins of recycle paper that we use for scrap paper, and each of us take turns making trips to the recycle center to drop off catalogs, magazines, newspapers, soda cans, and cardboard boxes.

    Like Diane & Lauren both mentioned, libraries are the original reusers and recyclers!

    Kim

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  9. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2009 at 1:36 PM

    One of our best children's programs at our library involved a local recycling organization called SCRAP. For free, they came in talked to the kids about recycling, its importance, and types of things they could recycle. The organization serves as a collection point for all sorts of recycled art stuff and then they resell it CHEAP. This is really great for teachers, artists, librarians any one looking for a great deal. At our program they also brought all sorts of cool recycled bits that the kids got to make robots out of -- the kids loved it and even the parents thought the program was great.

    http://scrapaction.org/

    ~Jurinda

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  10. readbooksOctober 3, 2009 at 12:36 PM

    Wow, these are all great. Good for all of you and all your libraries. You're doing a great job

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