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Canadian Editions of Harry Potter are Printed on Ancient Forest Friendly Paper
Authors and Publishers Promote Ecological Printing
"The forest at Hogwarts is home to magical creatures like unicorns and centaurs. Because the Canadian editions are printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper, the Harry Potter books are helping to save magnificent forests in the muggle world, the home of magical animals such as orangutans, wolves and bears. It is a good idea to respect ancient trees, especially if they have a temper like the Whomping Willow." - J. K. RowlingBy printing the first edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on ancient forest friendly paper, Raincoast Books is minimizing its impacts on the environment and helping safeguard biodiversity and the world's ancient and endangered forests.
Two years ago Canadian publishers McLelland and Stewart and Raincoast signed on to a campaign begun by a British Columbia environmentalist and began sourcing the costly paper.
Now some 35 Canadian companies are on board and their numbers have helped persuade forest companies to produce forest-friendly paper and printers to stock it.
Using 1,500,300 kilograms of 100% post-consumer recycled, processed chlorine free paper and fiber instead of virgin fiber to print Harry Potter means that Raincoast Books is making the following ecological savings:
* 39,320 trees would have been used to make an equivalent amount of virgin paper
* 63,435,801 liters of water
(enough water to fill 42 Olympic-sized swimming pools)
* 854,988 kilograms of solid waste
(equivalent to the weight of 209 average female elephants)
* 27,329 million BTUs of energy
(enough electricity to power the average North American home for 262 years)
* 1,645,243 kilograms of greenhouse gases
(equal to 5.3 million kilometers traveled by a car with average fuel efficiency)
(The above ecological savings are based on research conducted by Environmental Defense Fund and other members of the Paper Task Force.)
At the recently conducted Frankfurt Book Fair, Margaret Atwood spoke about trying to get people to wake up to the modern age. She is another Canadian trying to persuade the industry to use Ancient Forest Friendly.
"Until recently, there weren't a lot of alternatives, but now there are and we need to put people on to them while there is still something out there to save," Atwood said.
"We have shown that we can create a market for this Ancient Forest Friendly paper, and forest companies are nervous right now so it makes sense for them to diversify."
Atwood said the paper isn't proving a tough sell in eco-minded Europe. "When I turned up to my first interview with a German television station, that was what they wanted to talk about. All the journalists here are asking."