Books - Keep or Give Away?

Wednesday I was thrilled to be able to give over 100 used books to a charity book sale. These weren't all my books. About 75 of them were left over from our Christmas bazaar and I was storing them in our garage. Then I read a letter in the paper asking for books for a book sale to support a choir. That did it. I knew I could get rid of a lot of clutter in my garage and help someone else at the same time. Keeps them out of the recycling bin and the waste bin for several more years.

I am an avid reader and have purchased many books in the past, which I sadly admit still sit, like many loyal soldiers, on book shelves in various rooms. In light of going waste free, several questions about this practice need to be addressed. Should I be giving those books away? Martialling them out the door to a new adventure. Should I stop buying them in the first place? Putting starving authors out of work. Should I wait until the book is at the library? And then get on a waiting list behind 100 other avid readers. The ideal might be to purchase them online, download them on my computer and read them waste free. Can't wait for that day to come.

In the meantime, there is the question about recycling the existing books that may be damaged. They are not always easy to recycle. When I was a kid we used to burn any damaged books in the kitchen cookstove - once they had served the purpose of being fuel for the mind they were then used as fuel to heat the home. This only occurred if they had been badly water or kid damaged. Some of those books from my childhood survived kids and water and are still on my bookshelf. They won't be recycled for many more years.

The simple act of giving the bags of books away to the choir booksale has given me the stimulus reguired to ruthlessly sort through another bookshelf. More great stories will be boxed up and sent on their way to another appreciative reading enthusiast. Can't begin to live waste free without eliminating the waste that already exists - this may be more difficult than eliminating wasteful purchases.