Oh, re getting paid to pulp, I did find the quote after looking more carefully: > Sometimes you can find a paper recycling centre that will pay you for the pul

Oh, re getting paid to pulp, I did find the quote after looking more carefully: > Sometimes you can find a paper recycling centre that will pay you for the pulp I think that is probably pretty rare in 2023, and not a very common practice. That article is from 2011, I think it was probably pretty rare even in 2011. But let's google... ok, some sources say you can get $75 a ton for paper to be recycled. (I'm honestly still dubious in 2023, and for books specifically as input rather than clean paper without covers or glue, but let's go with it). An average book might weight about a pound. So for pulping 2000 books you might get $75, or under 4 cents a book. If any libraries are in fact getting this revenue, I still doubt this is actually guiding any decision-making. Not sure if you meant to imply it was. Some do make more than 4 cents a book from used book sales, that is true -- if guided by the revenue from getting rid of books at all, used book sales are probably a lot more attractive. but mostly libraries discard books when they don't think they serve the community anymore, to make room for other books. Not to make money from the discards. I understand people can disagree about what particular book might or might not serve the community anymore. And you apparently do, perhaps with your local library? I'm still interested in specific examples.