I will be the first one to admit that we have done a poor job of publicizing our company’s recycling efforts. It’s not because we haven’t done anything or have little to show for all of our efforts. As a matter of fact, we have recycled a staggering amount of used books since we have been in business.
We started recycling the same year we started the company in 2003 before the “green” movement caught on and before businesses were scrambling to show the public that they were environmentally responsible.
We recycled because it made sense. We recycled because our business model revolved around the concept of reusing. Our idea was simple. Sell unwanted books online that were discarded by consumers, bookstores, libraries, and thrift stores. It’s incredible to believe now but in the beginning these unwanted books were being thrown away daily into landfills. Once we started purchasing these books, they were either sold online, sold wholesale overseas, donated to charities, or recycled by the ton.
Recycling saves. It saves energy, natural resources, landfill space, and these days it is helping create jobs.
Today, just about everything gets recycled in each of our six warehouses across the country including our corporate offices in Washington. We recycle cardboard, plastics, aluminum, paper, and even wood. By far, the product we recycle the most is paper.
From 2003 to 2008, we recycled over 86,000,000 used books. That’s million with an “M.” A million of anything is hard to appreciate so I dusted off the part of my brain that does math in an effort to illustrate how much volume this is.
If you took the 86 million used books that we recycled from 2003 to 2008 and piled them on top of each other in one stack, they would reach 7,833,333 feet in the air. That’s the equivalent of stacking 13,030 Space Needles on top of one another! Or, if you took the same number of used books and laid them flat side by side, you would create a continuous line 12,215 miles long. That’s the equivalent of driving from Seattle to Florida 3.5 times!
That’s a lot of recycling. As someone once told me, “your recycling efforts are on steroids.” I agree. We’re GREEN with MUSCLE.
Hector Rivas
CEO
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