Harry Potter Saves Lives!
By Nic Canning
So, the much anticipated Harry Potter book is about to be released and with over six millions copies of the series being sold throughout Canada and over 195 million copies sold world wide one has to think, am I still going to have a home once they've finished printing the Half-Blood Prince!
Raincoast Books obviously had similar thoughts in their heads when they pitched to Canadian publishers the process of printing the series on a ncient forest friendly paper. This means that all Canadian editions in the Harry Potter series will be printed with paper that does not contain any materials from trees of ancient or old growth forests.
"Ancient forests refer to forest areas that are relatively undisturbed by human industrial activity. Ancient forests provide crucial ecological functions. They help stabilize the earth's climate and mitigate the effects of global warming. They protect watersheds and maintain soil productivity. They provide habitat for thousands of plants, animals and microorganisms." -raincoast.com
Really makes you proud to be Canadian, eh. Raincoast Books commits themselves to using ancient forest friendly paper. Publishing fiction, non-fiction and children's books, over 95% of these text-based books are printed on this friendly paper. To date Raincoast has saved over 75,185 old-growth trees.
The Vancouver based publisher has minimized ecological impacts and helped safeguard biodiversity and the world's ancient and endangered forests. In printing Harry Potter, The Order of the Phoenix (The fifth in the series), Raincoast Books made 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 kilometres travelled 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. For more information related to Raincoast Books visit their website at www.raincoast.com
"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. Rowling
Nic Canning
