If you’re a (sometimes) cynic like me, wondering if Earth Day is just another “Hallmark Holiday” launched to serve some person or company’s bottom line, you can rest easy.
First of all Earth Day is not about buying gifts or spending money. Just the opposite, it’s about sustainability and conservation and just general environmental awareness. Also if you think all this green stuff is new, think again. I did a little research and found out that the first Earth Day was in 1970. It was founded by Senator Gaylord Wilson (D-Wisconsin) who called for an environmental teach-in to be held on April 22nd of that year in response to widespread environmental degradation. That year over 20 million people participated. Now Earth Day is observed each year on April 22 by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries.
Better World Books will be celebrating Earth Day with a one day special when you reuse first and buy used books. On April 22 only, all used books bought on www.BetterWorldBooks.com will be 20% off. You’ll just enter coupon code EARTHDAY09 during checkout to receive this discount. (Of course shipping will still be free AND Carbon Neutral as always!)
We’ll also have lots of suggestions on how you can go green and celebrate!
Check back on Wednesday for BWB’s Earth Day Celebration and in the mean time let us know how you plan to honor the day!
Here in Hokkaido, Japan the snow is finally melting and we are going to dig another compost hole in the garden today. The average home in Hokkaido is required to have 9 different recycling bins to sort domestic waste. It’s almost a full time job in itself…but worth it!
I think you folks need to think about tripling the carbon offset amounts. Your business plan includes the wasteful trucking of material, a lot of which ends up as pulp to Indiana from, say, Florida or California. The very opposite of the “buy local” movement. In many cases you have inserted yourselves in an existing local business that could have dealt with distribution locally. For just one example, I ordered a book from you that was from a library about 80 miles from me, but it had traveled an extra 2000 miles to Indiana and another 2000 miles back. One of the many local booksellers could have handled the book. Your “saved from landfills” figure is also grossly inflated, there were local methods in place to sell these library books in many cases before your firm was created, and most of the created jobs were transferred from other locations. I have nothing against Indiana, in fact I was born there, but please be more honest with yourselves.