Each holiday season, shoppers visiting bookstores to buy gifts for friends and relatives face a bewildering array of options. Thousands of books and calendars confront them. With so many titles and themes to choose from, it's a wonder that anyone gives more than passing thought to how the products they finally select impact the environment.
For Sierra Club members, however, that concern is an important factor in their decision making, which is why Sierra Club Books has gone to great lengths to ensure that its publications are constructed in the most Earth-friendly fashion possible. All 1995 Sierra Club calendars, for example, have been printed on recycled paper with 30 percent pre-consumer and 20 percent post-consumer fiber. The remaining content is virgin fiber from tree-farmed trees, meaning that no old-growth forests or species habitats were impacted in its production. The paper was bleached without chlorine, so no dioxins were discharged during the manufacturing process.
"We are very proud of -- and excited by -- the progress we've made in the use of recycled and post-consumer materials," said Susan Ristow, Director of Design and Production for Sierra Club Books.
All new and reprinted "one-color" (black and white) Sierra Club books are printed on paper containing post-consumer recycled fiber, the exact percentage of which varies from title to title, and is stated on each book's copyright page. All four-color books produced by Sierra Club Books are printed on paper from tree-farmed trees. And calendars and books are more than just the paper they're made of, of course, which is why, in the past year, Sierra Club Books has expanded its use of soy-based inks for both text and jacket-cover printing, and is using more water-based (rather than petroleum-based) solvents on the presses.
While all these measures are positive steps, Sierra Club Books is constantly looking to
better the percentages of both recycled and post-consumer content in its publications. Anyone
who knows of reputable paper suppliers, with stocks containing higher percentages of pre-
and/or post-consumer fiber, is asked to contact Alan Weaver at Sierra Club
Books, 100 Bush St., 13th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104; phone (415) 291-1608 or e-mail
to alan.weaver@sierraclub.org