Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP
In 2003, Greenpeace produced evidence that the UK publishing industry was inadvertently fuelling the destruction of ancient forests in Finland and Canada.
It found that one Canadian spruce produces just 24 books, which means that if you read one book every two weeks, your habits destroy almost one large tree every year.
Despite the campaign, only 40% of the UK book industry has introduced paper with a high level of recycled content, largely choosing to use paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council instead.
The obvious thing to do to cut down on the number of books in circulation is to reduce, reuse and recycle, but beyond using a library, the opportunities for exchanging paperbacks have been limited to friends, community schemes and book groups.
But more eco-aware readers have been visiting a number of online book-swapping sites which have sprung up in the past two years.
There is an article in G2 today which looks into the various schemes. It reads:
Inspired by the goodwill schemes operated by hostels around the world, whereby travellers can leave behind books they have read and pick up something new, these sites generate little profit for their founders. The books are swapped directly between users, who pay the postage; the sites simply facilitate the meeting and identifying of potential exchanges.
G2 lists BookMooch.com - which boasts 68,930 users in 91 countries with nearly 700,000 books swapped since its launch in 2006 - along with WhatsOnMyBookshelf, PaperBackSwap and Bookins as popular sites.
But which other book-swap sites can you recommend? And which books have proved to be popular swaps? What would you like to lose from your collection?
