Examining Sustainability at Barnard

Book after Barnard

After books are in bad condition, Barnard takes one of two routes. If the books are in a condition beyond repair, Barnard recycles them through the local New York City recycling program. If the book, for example, Race After Technology, could still be used a bit, Barnard would mail it to Betterworld Books, which is an online used book seller that collects used books from donation bins and book drives across from 1,800 college campuses and 2,000 libraries in the United States. There, it would join 300 million books that have been sent to Betterworld Books instead of landfills, and it would then either be recycled or repaired and resold (Betterworld Books). If Race After Technology were resold, another book would be donated by Betterworld Books through a nonprofit organization like Books for Africa or Feed the Children (Wooten).

While sending the books overseas by air or boat is not the best for the environment, Betterworld Books contributes greatly to social programs while also diverting millions of books from landfills: the proceeds from the resold book would then go to Betterworld Books’ Annual Literacy Grants and to non-profit literacy partners such as Room to Read, the National Center for Families Learning, Books for Africa and the UK National Literacy Trust (Impact). By sending its used books to Betterworld Books, Barnard and other universities both reduce the amount of waste they contribute to landfills and support education and literacy worldwide.


 

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