Turkish Gov’t. Leaves Eco-Dark Ages Behind By Lending Books to Students in Bid to Save Trees and Cash
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 07.15.08
In a practice I can hardly fathom, the Turkish government has been giving 155 million new textbooks each year to students, most of which are thrown into the trash at the end of the year rather than simply requiring they return them for use by next year’s crop of students.
Of course there’s not only an environmental cost to this enormous waste of resources, but an economic cost as well, with the books costing the Turkish public more than $800 million annually.
So they’ve come up with an ingenious remedy that some folks have been practicing for centuries, book lending.
Which means they’ll be requiring students to return the books at the end of the school year rather than seeing them carted off to the landfill like a worn out pair of underwear while saving an estimated 1.27 million trees in the process.
Isn’t it amazing that in 2008 there are folks giving away millions of books to students, despite the fact that they must repurchase and distribute a set next year?
via: EcoWorldly
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I'm a bit shocked that this hasn't been done before.
I've grown up in a school system where we signed our sometimes older than us textbooks out and made sure we noted all the wear and tear otherwise we would be fined for vandalism. We were encouraged to make or purchase covers for the textbooks which reduced wear and lengthened the life span of the books. (I made mine out of heavy brown butcher paper which would last the whole year and also provide a great base for doodling or collaging.)
I am often appalled at this disposable fad we seem to be going through, but disposable books! Ahh! In college where I had to buy my textbooks, used textbooks were highly sought because new ones were so expensive or you wanted to keep them cause they were useful references.
Not exactly rocket science...
It's interesting how you radicalized a peaceful positive article (from Ecoworldly) and turned it into an agressive arrogant useless rant.