The Colombian headquarters of Penguin Random House, one of the largest publishers in the world, made a crucial decision to reduce its negative impact on the environment.
Typically, when a publisher prints multiple editions of a book, they use a plastic wrap to pack them up and ship them to bookstores. That is the reason why when a person buys a book, he receives it completely covered by a layer of plastic that he removes and then throws in the trash and takes several years to biodegrade. That is why many criticize this process, called heat-sealing, which ends up generating high levels of contamination.
Puede leer: “Somos optimistas sobre el futuro de la industria editorial”, Plaza & Janés
In fact, according to Greenpeace1.8 tons of plastic take 75 years to decompose, and the
Annual consumption of plastic by heat-sealing is 1.5 tons in Colombia, where each person consumes 24 kilos of products made of this material per year. The panorama in the world is similar: according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 300 million tons of plastic waste a year suffocate rivers and seas.
For some time now, and for this reason, several people have been campaigning for publishers to abandon the use of plastic, something that is not so simple, because it is part of the internal processes of the book industry and it is the way to avoid that the books are damaged during the transport and sale process.
But this Wednesday, a big step was taken in that direction. Penguin Random House Colombia, the local headquarters of one of the largest publishers in the world, announced that it will stop using plastic in the packaging of all its books. A decision with which it joins the initiative that the company has already taken in countries such as the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Spain, Portugal, England, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, Australia and Chile.
That is not the only decision announced by the publishing company. “The completion of the heat-sealing process is in line with the reduction in the use of plastic bags in which Penguin Random House (Colombia) began the process of using bags made from sugar cane bagasse paper, a 100 percent recycled waste from the sugar production,” their directives explained in a statement.
Le puede interesar: ‘Antes de que el mar cierre los caminos’: la nueva novela de Andrea Mejía
“With this incorporation, CO2 emissions are reduced by 7 percent compared to white paper and no trees are cut down or chemical bleaches are used. 100 percent biodegradable”, they add.
The decision could be a giant step in the quest to make the publishing industry in Colombia more sustainable. So far the publisher has not explained if it will use other material to pack its books.
–
