People in Hokkaido concerned with education established a group named Hokkaido Book Sharing in January 2008 to promote reading and the recycling of books. Over the six months since being founded, as of July 2008, the group had collected about 30,000 books and donated them to small public facilities in need of reading materials such as children's halls, child-support institutions, and community centers.

The group started by calling on citizens, businesses, and other associations to donate their unused books. After being repaired and cleaned, the books were sorted in preparation to find "new shelves" for them.

The group intends to offer 1,000 books to ten facilities every month, which is 100 books each. Annually, the book sharing system makes it possible to recycle about 12,000 books and saves six tons of paper, at 500 grams per book, from being thrown away. It also saves the public facilities from spending approximately 14 million yen (about U.S.$130,000) on books, when calculated based on the average price of a children's book in Japan (1,200 yen, or about $11).




Posted: 2008/10/19 10:49:41 PM

TAG Local government , Manufacturing industry , Material reduction , NGO/Citizen , Non-manufacturing industry