The best and highest use of a used book is for someone else to read it and pass it on, or to donate it to someone in need. However not all used books can be shared or sold and the last resort for these should be recycling (unfortunately it is still all too often landfill). But there is a niche before recycling to make creative use of otherwise unwanted used books, and I’d like to share a few of those fun and useful ideas with you here.

Books, by material composition, lend themselves well to recycling. Whether hardback or paperback, they are of course paper based, which comes in handy when cover-to-cover flipping ends and potential for reuse begins.

Time and time again, we come across great book reuse examples on the pages of 1-800-RECYCLING.com. Use your imagination, and it has probably been accomplished. And all of this repurposing, reusing and recycling means big savings for Mother Earth. After all, why toss a book aside when reading it is only the first thing you can do with it?

One of my personal favorite reuse examples: old hardcover books transformed into 3-D origami shapes. New Mexico-based Isaac Salazar carefully sculpts with nothing more than an X-Acto knife and equal parts extreme precision and patience, truly drawing the eye to books that may have otherwise been forgotten.

Likewise, we have Julia Strand’s intricate layered book carvings, “dissected” and tiered in such a way that has to be seen to be believed. The subjects are donated or found at yard sales and secondhand stores. Wiping away the dust is only the first step for Strand, who favors painstaking detail and slow, steady slicing to accomplish her job. Not one to make readers worry, Strand insists she only uses obsolete texts that have no value in the marketplace.

For those of us who favor the DIY mentality but perhaps don’t have the time or artistic talent of those above, we have put together a collection of book repurposing ideas. It’s all here, from using old books to make literary-influenced furniture, to salvaging hardcovers to make retro-looking journals.

It is inspiring to see so many models of book reuse and recycling. What will you do to get the most out of your books? We’ll keep our eyes peeled, and continue to report our findings on the pages of 1-800-RECYCLING.com.

Si Robins is the Editor-in-Chief of 1-800-RECYCLING.com, UrbanMining.org and Green is Good. Robins has covered eco-friendly design, sustainability and many other topics over the course of his career. He studied journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, winning acclaim for stories written during his time there, before embarking on a career that has included both editing and writing duties for various print and online publications. He resides in Phoenix. Email him at si@1800recycling.com.

*Note* The above blog post is a guest blog from our friend Si at 1800recycling.com. This content does not necessarily reflect the views of Better World Books (as our lawyers make sure we say). We love having guest bloggers and invite you to email 11@betterworldbooks.com if you are interested in covering a book or topic on the BWB Blog. Thank you, Si!