11 ms·

Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals

Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! And ten years ago, it was nearly 200. https://archive.is/rHAhG https://archive.is/rHAhG Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs? That's space, trees, plants, mammals, birds, insects, mushrooms, ... all being squeezed for a glossy catalog, most of which will get thumbed through once or twice and sent to the landfill to rot. These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they're not just paper. I love paper books, and I enjoyed browsing this catalog just like many others in this thread, and yet I don't think I will miss this one. Hopefully, other thick glossy catalogs will follow suit. Production of catalogs like this squeezes our biome, and if we don't turn back, it will pop, and we'll be left with only enough resources for a small fraction of us to survive.

ngngngng 6y ago
"The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller’s hole, reading a book. It was a real book—onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent." - Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Great quote, thanks for posting it. Books are not just decadent, they're also a reliable store of information which cannot be erased or altered easily without our knowledge. There's immense and irreplaceable value in paper books, and I've taken to collecting the best ones. I just don't think there's much value in this particular one.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Narp, I mean some will probably end up as collector's items in a hundred years, as a glance into 2021 design trends - 100 year old advertisements and catalogs are great collectibles and time capsules nowadays - but at the moment they're more of a nice to have for the next year or so. I do like leafing through things like that sometimes, but at the same time I don't mind going to the physical store for a browse. More useful.
  - ngngngng 6y ago
    As it relates, the only reason I could find that quote to reply to you was because I have the book in digital format. I remembered the word leather, and "leather" only appears in Leviathan Wakes 8 times, making it easy to find. I love paper books as well, but I think the authors have prophetically captured the inevitable. Cutting down forests to only add tangibility to our bytes just isn't worth it.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      The quote is particularly relevant when discussing space though. It's specifically the weight to data ratio that's called out as decadent. Something that's more relevant if you're used to travel with severe constraints on weight much more often than we are. I agree that it's inevitable that things move that way - my only paper books in recent years have been to complete my collection of Ian Banks because that particular edition looks gorgeous, and Stålenhag's art books. I don't anticipate buying more paper copies of novels or textbooks unless there are books I can't find in digital version. But at the same time, I just published a scifi novel and was surprised at how large a proportion of sales are still made up by paperback (not exactly selling millions, so it's not exactly a large sample of the market). It seems like it will take a long time before paper books become unusual to the point of being considered decadent.
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      Plenty of existing books to be found without having to source new ones. Many, many books are being discarded these days, so I don't have to buy new, or buy at all.
      - 52-6F-62 6y ago
        Many towns' library systems do giveaways as well. My old hometown's system used to do a semi-regular culling at the yearly mini arts & crafts fest in the park. They'd lay out 5 long rows of tables and cover them in old books that had to be retired. You could take as much as you could carry for a donation of any size. I used to go when I was in my teens and had two dollars to rub together, and I still go back now in my 30's if I'm in town (with more of a donation). I've found some real gems.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Most paper books don't last. Paperbacks are printed on cheap acidic paper that yellows and eventually starts to crumble. The glue in the spine dries and cracks. Hardbacks are more likely to last, and premium heirloom hardbacks = special print runs with special materials and extra assembly effort - are most likely to survive. But for what? Most heirloom hardbacks are better-than-average novels for well-heeled fans and collectors, not a complete guide to rebuilding civilisation. I'd be all for an apocalypse-beating Self-Study Handbook of The Important Stuff We Worked Out and Did, but good luck finding a publisher to fund what would be a massive project.
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      Some of the most valuable books have more to do with the inner world than the outer. Other than binding, which can be re-done pretty easily, paperbacks are readable after 50-100 years. The paper may yellow, but crumbling takes a bit longer.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        You may have been unusually lucky. I barely dare open some of the paperbacks I bought in the 70s and 80s. Although I have PDFs of all of them, so it doesn't matter. The fact that I can change the font size to make them legible now does, to me at least. The hardbacks are still fine. (Except for the print size.)
    - timgl 6y ago
      You're in luck, someone already has [0] [0] "The Knowledge" by Lewis Dartnell
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      I have several paperbacks that are getting close to their centenary. They are getting slightly fragile but that is a long way from saying that the content is unusable. And I have several books published in the nineteen thirties and forties that would serve well to reboot civilization having comprehensive instructions for building all sorts of necessary machinery, buildings, clothes, etc. There were many such books with titles such as "Everything Within" and "The Handyman's Complete Self-Instructor". There is no need for a publisher to fund a massive project; most of what is needed is already available on paper and increasing amounts of it have been scanned so that anyone with a laser printer can make their own permanent copy. Of course those 1930s and 40s books won't tell you how to build a modern computer but they do tell you how to build a radio without needing to build a chip fab first. And it seems that there is sufficient interest (presumably as conversation pieces) for some such books to be republished: https://bookshop.org/books/the-handyman-s-complete-self-instructor/9781409724582 https://bookshop.org/books/the-handyman-s-complete-self-inst...
  - yardie 6y ago
    We assume books are permanent because we've always had them. But in medieval times books weren't permanent. We only have the knowledge that we do now because monasteries had a dedicated team of monks who constantly copied and rewrote books onto new parchment.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      True, good modern paper of the types those monk used lasts about 500 years or so in the typical case. (meaning no fire-flood, both of which were common; and not in a carefully climate controlled area which can add thousands of years). We haven't really improved on paper since then. There is a lot of cheap paper that will fall apart in less than 100 years, but those monks didn't use that. What digital storage do you have that will last that long? A few CDs would in the ideal case (but most are not that grade). I'm not clear how long SSDs will last. Magnetic tape becomes brittle and single read in about 30 years as we know from history. The only advantage of digital is IF you care at all it is easy/cheap to copy to something new.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      It only seems like we’ve always had them because most people want books from this century. The further back you go the harder it is to find any type of book, even mass produced dime novels, because a lot of them have rotted away. If you actually want books to last a long time, they must be stored under controlled conditions by an actual archivist.
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Books (especially used ones) are also generally cheaper than digital copies.
- dsego 6y ago
  Well, we're likely one strong magnetic pulse away from having only paper books as a source of information, so there is that.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Electromagnetic pulses can't wipe CDs or DVDs, so we'd definitely still have anything stored on those, and most data centres are designed with EM shielding so we could still have data stored in the cloud unless it was a massive pulse. I think we'd be OK.
    - Retric 6y ago
      CD’s and DVD’s require players which are susceptible to EM pulses. It seems extremely unlikely for that kind of global EM pulse to happen, but I can’t exactly say it’s impossible.
      - ryder9 6y ago
        fires destroy books, and there are more fires than EMPs more fires have destroyed entire libraries than EMPs have destroyed storage or digital storage reading devices
      - dividedbyzero 6y ago
        I'm no EM-pulsicist, but I believe an EM pulse capable of inducing destructive currents in conductors as relatively short as those you'd find in an (unplugged) CD/DVD player, and doing that all over the globe, such a pulse would have to be ridiculously, absurdly massive. Are there any events or things we know about that could do this without also, say, sterilizing the planet?
        depressedpanda 6y ago
        Coronal mass ejections can cause geomagnetic storms that will mess with electronics globally. It happened back in 1859, but it's effects were limited as the only susceptible tech was telegraph systems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
- alvarlagerlof 6y ago
  I've been watching the series and haven't heard that quote. Might just have to read the books now.
  - ngngngng 6y ago
    I started with the series as well, after the previous season ended I became desperate to continue the story so I started reading them. They did such a good job with the series but the books were so good already.
hef19898 6y ago
There is a ton of misconceptions out there about paper. Not saying using less isn't a good thing, so. Most paper uses a very decent amount of recycled paper, has ti actually. To the point the industry faced issues last Q1 when demand went down and there wasn't enough recycled paper on the market. Trees are grown explicitly for paper production, and are regrown in the same forests. Net forest losses are mainly due to farming, e.g. in the Amazon region. Energy wise, paper production offers great opportunities to balance the grid. Most paper, at least in Europe, is actually recycled. And electronics do have there issues as well. They consume raw earthes, are consumed as well, end up in land fills and also have quite extensive supply chains and CO2 foot prints. And they consume electricity, which has to produced. And we are nowhere near the necessary levels of renewables. I do support getting rid of useless paper consumption, it just not as straight forward as it seems.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Well, that covers the paper, for the most part. Thanks for explaining that. Now, let's talk about the other components: the ink (petrochemicals, for the most part) the production, transportation, and containers for the ink the runoff into our biosphere from the ink production the transportation of the paper to the printing facility the binding (glue) the transportation of the catalogs to the stores the plastic wrap and other packaging for the catalogs the labor put into it (perhaps those people could be paid to rest instead? probably better for everyone all-around) Did I miss anything? How many dead, displaced, or injured animals do you think that is per catalog? How many humans harmed by exposure to manufactured poison? How many gallons of diesel extracted, transported, refined, transported again, and burned? How many dozen pieces of trucks, trains, and container ships mined, produced, and worn down? Is it still better than viewing the same catalogs online on an already existing computer screen? Every single artefact produced by our system has a similar footprint. It's not just money cost. And I think it's worth considering.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Transportation has propably the highest negative impact, paper is aheavy bulk product after all. Animal impact, i would say comparativley low. We are talking about decades old economic forests here (there are of course exception which should be prosecuted to the fullest where ever possible). In Europa at least, these activities are not having any more negative impact on wild life. Again, these are not age old natural forestsanymore and haven't been for quite a while. I am not saying pushing the catalogue to digital is a net negative, no idea how that could even be reliably quantified. Just that paper and print production is by no means as negative to the environment as is believed.
creddit 6y ago
> These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they're not just paper. Great! A new carbon capture method that also provides utility! I’ll take 40M please.
- ric2b 6y ago
  I don't think you're saving any carbon emissions by printing IKEA catalogs...
galfarragem 6y ago
This may be the most demagogic HN comment I've read in years. > 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! - What about about daily printed newspapers? - What about shop brochures that we receive weekly in the mailbox? - What about toilet paper and derivates? I can't understand people congratulating the discontinuation of an yearly book (arguably an historic document) instead of focusing one order of magnitude higher.
- rrrazdan 6y ago
  What about them?
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Well, we won't get rid of them all at once... But don't you think it would be a good idea? For what it's worth, I don't use toilet paper for its intended purpose, and I bet my butt is way cleaner than yours if you do. :) I'm not sure why you are so critical of applauding one good thing just because other bad things are still in place.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    How do you blow your nose?
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      The same way it's been done for millennia before, into a cloth or into my hand which I then wash.
      - briandear 6y ago
        It must be exhausting to be so much better than the rest of us. I never understood the idea of privation being considered progressive. It isn’t progress to set the thermostat to a more uncomfortable temperature in order to save energy. It isn’t progress to have massive grid outages because windmills froze — windmills that are sitting atop many lifetimes of oil and natural gas reserves. It isn’t progress to freeze today because someone is theorizing that Tuvalu is on the cusp of sinking. Yet Tuvalu is growing in size instead of sinking but our policies still feature Chicken Little fear-mongering as a tool of control. Sitting in a frozen-windmill-induced blackout in sub freezing temperatures for day two in Houston of all places makes me extremely irritated that the reason we have a blackout is because the hysterical anti-carbon crowd is afraid of a catastrophe that we’ve been promised since Al Gore’s inaccurate film. [1] A “catastrophe” being used in a similar vein as the war in Eastasia. Or was it Eurasia? Kind of hard to remember now given that new printed books are being replaced by digital because forgotmypw17 is worried about the carbon footprint of ink.
systemvoltage 6y ago
You’re arguing with emotions but no objectivity. Did you miss the memo where hordes of people drive their trucks to IKEA and buy furniture that’s designed to be affordable by the middle class, costs an enormous amount of energy to produce and recycle and has a huge carbon footprint? But never mind those things, catalog is paper so it makes it easy to market your argument to tree huggers. The gas consumption alone to drive to IKEA dwarfs the energy required to make and print catalogs. Just don’t go to IKEA and next time they won’t print as many! Problem solved. And you’ll save gas too. IKEA catalogs are culture. It’s like saying let’s close down the Louvre museum because it’s consuming too much energy and inviting people to travel to Paris wasting more energy.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I commented to get the thought process started. The furniture and its procurement is only the next logical step in the conversation. Thinking and talking about this stuff is how I myself went from buying Ikea furniture to no longer doing so. I think that without having these kinds of conversations and perpetuating them we have little hope.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    I’m with you. We should all strive to stop waste and do our part. I don’t shop at IKEA for similar reasons and I have also cut down Amazon purchases for random things that I can do without. I think I was being too harsh, but I am sad that the catalogs are going away. They’re such a big part of IKEA’s contribution to culture that it’s carbon footprint can be forgiven.
S53Vflnr4n 6y ago
Shouldn’t we more worried about using toilet paper than IKEA catalog if we want to save trees ? Using a bidet is very easy and clean. https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/04/16/toilet-paper-wipes-out-27000-trees-a-day/ https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/04/16/toilet-paper-...
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  It's true, and a bidet proper isn't necessarily needed. I haven't used an actual bidet in a while, but I honestly find it hard to fathom not washing my butt after pooping now that I've started doing it. TP is just smearing it around...
  - fredsir 6y ago
    Can you explain how you wash your butt afterwards? Do you take a shower? Sit in the sink and rinse with soap?
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      It depends on the circumstances. I may get into the shower or I may hang my butt over the tub or sink. The basic method is to keep washing it and rinsing it off and then washing off my hand, until I no longer feel poop or anything resembling it on my butt. Be gentle. No soap on the butt, that will dry it out. (As I mentioned in other posts, I don't use soap anywhere besides my hands.) I then keep washing it, occasionally washing off my hand. When I can rub my butt with my hand it comes back not smelling like poop at all, I consider my butt to be clean. If you look at animals, they do something similar, though they have to lick it clean. I consider myself very fortunate and blessed to not have to do that. :) Afterwards, I wash my hands, get dressed, and then wash my hands again.
      - fredsir 6y ago
        Thanks. Definitely food for thought!
  - 6y ago
tutfbhuf 6y ago
> Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs? The stack would reach from earth to ISS multiple times.
frankfrankfrank 6y ago
1) What do you think IKEA furniture is made of? 2) What do you think the impact is of poorly constructed IKEA furniture that lasts some small fraction of time of massive wood furniture. If you want to go off, then go off on the fact that our governments support the creation of throwaway products rather than long lasting products.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I agree on the Ikea furniture bit, and the impact it has. The catalog is only the beginning. I can't do anything about what our governments support. I can do something about what I support and what I am complicit to.
bigtones 6y ago
Tell that to Restoration Hardware (RH).
munificent 6y ago
> sent to the landfill to rot. What if we call it "carbon sequestration" instead? :)
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  How would you like a job at Greenwashing Incorporated? You can start on Monday!
blackrock 6y ago
But browsing the web for it is just not the same. You need a fast internet connection. And a fast computer. Even your older iPhone probably can’t handle the online catalog anymore. After a few pages, you just give up. But with a paper catalog, you can put it down. Circle it. Fold it. Rip pages out. Write on it. Then discard it. You can rifle through the pages, and dream of how you want your home to be laid out.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  It is too bad they designed it poorly. I regularly test my sites with older devices and ensure even a 25yo PC can access it. It,s not that difficult, just a bit tedious.

ngngngng 6y ago

"The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller’s hole, reading a book. It was a real book—onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent." - Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Great quote, thanks for posting it. Books are not just decadent, they're also a reliable store of information which cannot be erased or altered easily without our knowledge. There's immense and irreplaceable value in paper books, and I've taken to collecting the best ones. I just don't think there's much value in this particular one.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Narp, I mean some will probably end up as collector's items in a hundred years, as a glance into 2021 design trends - 100 year old advertisements and catalogs are great collectibles and time capsules nowadays - but at the moment they're more of a nice to have for the next year or so. I do like leafing through things like that sometimes, but at the same time I don't mind going to the physical store for a browse. More useful.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  As it relates, the only reason I could find that quote to reply to you was because I have the book in digital format. I remembered the word leather, and "leather" only appears in Leviathan Wakes 8 times, making it easy to find. I love paper books as well, but I think the authors have prophetically captured the inevitable. Cutting down forests to only add tangibility to our bytes just isn't worth it.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    The quote is particularly relevant when discussing space though. It's specifically the weight to data ratio that's called out as decadent. Something that's more relevant if you're used to travel with severe constraints on weight much more often than we are. I agree that it's inevitable that things move that way - my only paper books in recent years have been to complete my collection of Ian Banks because that particular edition looks gorgeous, and Stålenhag's art books. I don't anticipate buying more paper copies of novels or textbooks unless there are books I can't find in digital version. But at the same time, I just published a scifi novel and was surprised at how large a proportion of sales are still made up by paperback (not exactly selling millions, so it's not exactly a large sample of the market). It seems like it will take a long time before paper books become unusual to the point of being considered decadent.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Plenty of existing books to be found without having to source new ones. Many, many books are being discarded these days, so I don't have to buy new, or buy at all.
    - 52-6F-62 6y ago
      Many towns' library systems do giveaways as well. My old hometown's system used to do a semi-regular culling at the yearly mini arts & crafts fest in the park. They'd lay out 5 long rows of tables and cover them in old books that had to be retired. You could take as much as you could carry for a donation of any size. I used to go when I was in my teens and had two dollars to rub together, and I still go back now in my 30's if I'm in town (with more of a donation). I've found some real gems.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Most paper books don't last. Paperbacks are printed on cheap acidic paper that yellows and eventually starts to crumble. The glue in the spine dries and cracks. Hardbacks are more likely to last, and premium heirloom hardbacks = special print runs with special materials and extra assembly effort - are most likely to survive. But for what? Most heirloom hardbacks are better-than-average novels for well-heeled fans and collectors, not a complete guide to rebuilding civilisation. I'd be all for an apocalypse-beating Self-Study Handbook of The Important Stuff We Worked Out and Did, but good luck finding a publisher to fund what would be a massive project.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Some of the most valuable books have more to do with the inner world than the outer. Other than binding, which can be re-done pretty easily, paperbacks are readable after 50-100 years. The paper may yellow, but crumbling takes a bit longer.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      You may have been unusually lucky. I barely dare open some of the paperbacks I bought in the 70s and 80s. Although I have PDFs of all of them, so it doesn't matter. The fact that I can change the font size to make them legible now does, to me at least. The hardbacks are still fine. (Except for the print size.)
  - timgl 6y ago
    You're in luck, someone already has [0] [0] "The Knowledge" by Lewis Dartnell
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    I have several paperbacks that are getting close to their centenary. They are getting slightly fragile but that is a long way from saying that the content is unusable. And I have several books published in the nineteen thirties and forties that would serve well to reboot civilization having comprehensive instructions for building all sorts of necessary machinery, buildings, clothes, etc. There were many such books with titles such as "Everything Within" and "The Handyman's Complete Self-Instructor". There is no need for a publisher to fund a massive project; most of what is needed is already available on paper and increasing amounts of it have been scanned so that anyone with a laser printer can make their own permanent copy. Of course those 1930s and 40s books won't tell you how to build a modern computer but they do tell you how to build a radio without needing to build a chip fab first. And it seems that there is sufficient interest (presumably as conversation pieces) for some such books to be republished: https://bookshop.org/books/the-handyman-s-complete-self-instructor/9781409724582 https://bookshop.org/books/the-handyman-s-complete-self-inst...
- yardie 6y ago
  We assume books are permanent because we've always had them. But in medieval times books weren't permanent. We only have the knowledge that we do now because monasteries had a dedicated team of monks who constantly copied and rewrote books onto new parchment.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    True, good modern paper of the types those monk used lasts about 500 years or so in the typical case. (meaning no fire-flood, both of which were common; and not in a carefully climate controlled area which can add thousands of years). We haven't really improved on paper since then. There is a lot of cheap paper that will fall apart in less than 100 years, but those monks didn't use that. What digital storage do you have that will last that long? A few CDs would in the ideal case (but most are not that grade). I'm not clear how long SSDs will last. Magnetic tape becomes brittle and single read in about 30 years as we know from history. The only advantage of digital is IF you care at all it is easy/cheap to copy to something new.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    It only seems like we’ve always had them because most people want books from this century. The further back you go the harder it is to find any type of book, even mass produced dime novels, because a lot of them have rotted away. If you actually want books to last a long time, they must be stored under controlled conditions by an actual archivist.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  Books (especially used ones) are also generally cheaper than digital copies.
dsego 6y ago
Well, we're likely one strong magnetic pulse away from having only paper books as a source of information, so there is that.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Electromagnetic pulses can't wipe CDs or DVDs, so we'd definitely still have anything stored on those, and most data centres are designed with EM shielding so we could still have data stored in the cloud unless it was a massive pulse. I think we'd be OK.
  - Retric 6y ago
    CD’s and DVD’s require players which are susceptible to EM pulses. It seems extremely unlikely for that kind of global EM pulse to happen, but I can’t exactly say it’s impossible.
    - ryder9 6y ago
      fires destroy books, and there are more fires than EMPs more fires have destroyed entire libraries than EMPs have destroyed storage or digital storage reading devices
    - dividedbyzero 6y ago
      I'm no EM-pulsicist, but I believe an EM pulse capable of inducing destructive currents in conductors as relatively short as those you'd find in an (unplugged) CD/DVD player, and doing that all over the globe, such a pulse would have to be ridiculously, absurdly massive. Are there any events or things we know about that could do this without also, say, sterilizing the planet?
      - depressedpanda 6y ago
        Coronal mass ejections can cause geomagnetic storms that will mess with electronics globally. It happened back in 1859, but it's effects were limited as the only susceptible tech was telegraph systems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
alvarlagerlof 6y ago
I've been watching the series and haven't heard that quote. Might just have to read the books now.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  I started with the series as well, after the previous season ended I became desperate to continue the story so I started reading them. They did such a good job with the series but the books were so good already.

hef19898 6y ago

There is a ton of misconceptions out there about paper. Not saying using less isn't a good thing, so. Most paper uses a very decent amount of recycled paper, has ti actually. To the point the industry faced issues last Q1 when demand went down and there wasn't enough recycled paper on the market. Trees are grown explicitly for paper production, and are regrown in the same forests. Net forest losses are mainly due to farming, e.g. in the Amazon region. Energy wise, paper production offers great opportunities to balance the grid. Most paper, at least in Europe, is actually recycled. And electronics do have there issues as well. They consume raw earthes, are consumed as well, end up in land fills and also have quite extensive supply chains and CO2 foot prints. And they consume electricity, which has to produced. And we are nowhere near the necessary levels of renewables. I do support getting rid of useless paper consumption, it just not as straight forward as it seems.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Well, that covers the paper, for the most part. Thanks for explaining that. Now, let's talk about the other components: the ink (petrochemicals, for the most part) the production, transportation, and containers for the ink the runoff into our biosphere from the ink production the transportation of the paper to the printing facility the binding (glue) the transportation of the catalogs to the stores the plastic wrap and other packaging for the catalogs the labor put into it (perhaps those people could be paid to rest instead? probably better for everyone all-around) Did I miss anything? How many dead, displaced, or injured animals do you think that is per catalog? How many humans harmed by exposure to manufactured poison? How many gallons of diesel extracted, transported, refined, transported again, and burned? How many dozen pieces of trucks, trains, and container ships mined, produced, and worn down? Is it still better than viewing the same catalogs online on an already existing computer screen? Every single artefact produced by our system has a similar footprint. It's not just money cost. And I think it's worth considering.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Transportation has propably the highest negative impact, paper is aheavy bulk product after all. Animal impact, i would say comparativley low. We are talking about decades old economic forests here (there are of course exception which should be prosecuted to the fullest where ever possible). In Europa at least, these activities are not having any more negative impact on wild life. Again, these are not age old natural forestsanymore and haven't been for quite a while. I am not saying pushing the catalogue to digital is a net negative, no idea how that could even be reliably quantified. Just that paper and print production is by no means as negative to the environment as is believed.

creddit 6y ago

> These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they're not just paper. Great! A new carbon capture method that also provides utility! I’ll take 40M please.

ric2b 6y ago
I don't think you're saving any carbon emissions by printing IKEA catalogs...

galfarragem 6y ago

This may be the most demagogic HN comment I've read in years. > 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! - What about about daily printed newspapers? - What about shop brochures that we receive weekly in the mailbox? - What about toilet paper and derivates? I can't understand people congratulating the discontinuation of an yearly book (arguably an historic document) instead of focusing one order of magnitude higher.

rrrazdan 6y ago
What about them?
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Well, we won't get rid of them all at once... But don't you think it would be a good idea? For what it's worth, I don't use toilet paper for its intended purpose, and I bet my butt is way cleaner than yours if you do. :) I'm not sure why you are so critical of applauding one good thing just because other bad things are still in place.
- iso1631 6y ago
  How do you blow your nose?
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    The same way it's been done for millennia before, into a cloth or into my hand which I then wash.
    - briandear 6y ago
      It must be exhausting to be so much better than the rest of us. I never understood the idea of privation being considered progressive. It isn’t progress to set the thermostat to a more uncomfortable temperature in order to save energy. It isn’t progress to have massive grid outages because windmills froze — windmills that are sitting atop many lifetimes of oil and natural gas reserves. It isn’t progress to freeze today because someone is theorizing that Tuvalu is on the cusp of sinking. Yet Tuvalu is growing in size instead of sinking but our policies still feature Chicken Little fear-mongering as a tool of control. Sitting in a frozen-windmill-induced blackout in sub freezing temperatures for day two in Houston of all places makes me extremely irritated that the reason we have a blackout is because the hysterical anti-carbon crowd is afraid of a catastrophe that we’ve been promised since Al Gore’s inaccurate film. [1] A “catastrophe” being used in a similar vein as the war in Eastasia. Or was it Eurasia? Kind of hard to remember now given that new printed books are being replaced by digital because forgotmypw17 is worried about the carbon footprint of ink.

systemvoltage 6y ago

You’re arguing with emotions but no objectivity. Did you miss the memo where hordes of people drive their trucks to IKEA and buy furniture that’s designed to be affordable by the middle class, costs an enormous amount of energy to produce and recycle and has a huge carbon footprint? But never mind those things, catalog is paper so it makes it easy to market your argument to tree huggers. The gas consumption alone to drive to IKEA dwarfs the energy required to make and print catalogs. Just don’t go to IKEA and next time they won’t print as many! Problem solved. And you’ll save gas too. IKEA catalogs are culture. It’s like saying let’s close down the Louvre museum because it’s consuming too much energy and inviting people to travel to Paris wasting more energy.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
I commented to get the thought process started. The furniture and its procurement is only the next logical step in the conversation. Thinking and talking about this stuff is how I myself went from buying Ikea furniture to no longer doing so. I think that without having these kinds of conversations and perpetuating them we have little hope.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I’m with you. We should all strive to stop waste and do our part. I don’t shop at IKEA for similar reasons and I have also cut down Amazon purchases for random things that I can do without. I think I was being too harsh, but I am sad that the catalogs are going away. They’re such a big part of IKEA’s contribution to culture that it’s carbon footprint can be forgiven.

S53Vflnr4n 6y ago

Shouldn’t we more worried about using toilet paper than IKEA catalog if we want to save trees ? Using a bidet is very easy and clean. https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/04/16/toilet-paper-wipes-out-27000-trees-a-day/ https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/04/16/toilet-paper-...

forgotmypw17 6y ago
It's true, and a bidet proper isn't necessarily needed. I haven't used an actual bidet in a while, but I honestly find it hard to fathom not washing my butt after pooping now that I've started doing it. TP is just smearing it around...
- fredsir 6y ago
  Can you explain how you wash your butt afterwards? Do you take a shower? Sit in the sink and rinse with soap?
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    It depends on the circumstances. I may get into the shower or I may hang my butt over the tub or sink. The basic method is to keep washing it and rinsing it off and then washing off my hand, until I no longer feel poop or anything resembling it on my butt. Be gentle. No soap on the butt, that will dry it out. (As I mentioned in other posts, I don't use soap anywhere besides my hands.) I then keep washing it, occasionally washing off my hand. When I can rub my butt with my hand it comes back not smelling like poop at all, I consider my butt to be clean. If you look at animals, they do something similar, though they have to lick it clean. I consider myself very fortunate and blessed to not have to do that. :) Afterwards, I wash my hands, get dressed, and then wash my hands again.
    - fredsir 6y ago
      Thanks. Definitely food for thought!
- 6y ago

tutfbhuf 6y ago

> Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs? The stack would reach from earth to ISS multiple times.

frankfrankfrank 6y ago

1) What do you think IKEA furniture is made of? 2) What do you think the impact is of poorly constructed IKEA furniture that lasts some small fraction of time of massive wood furniture. If you want to go off, then go off on the fact that our governments support the creation of throwaway products rather than long lasting products.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
I agree on the Ikea furniture bit, and the impact it has. The catalog is only the beginning. I can't do anything about what our governments support. I can do something about what I support and what I am complicit to.

bigtones 6y ago

Tell that to Restoration Hardware (RH).

munificent 6y ago

> sent to the landfill to rot. What if we call it "carbon sequestration" instead? :)

forgotmypw17 6y ago
How would you like a job at Greenwashing Incorporated? You can start on Monday!

blackrock 6y ago

But browsing the web for it is just not the same. You need a fast internet connection. And a fast computer. Even your older iPhone probably can’t handle the online catalog anymore. After a few pages, you just give up. But with a paper catalog, you can put it down. Circle it. Fold it. Rip pages out. Write on it. Then discard it. You can rifle through the pages, and dream of how you want your home to be laid out.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
It is too bad they designed it poorly. I regularly test my sites with older devices and ensure even a 25yo PC can access it. It,s not that difficult, just a bit tedious.