Those of us in NYC couldn’t help but hear about the scandal involving H&M and trashed unsold clothes. Lots of people were upset, and for good reason. There’s no point in destroying perfectly good clothing when so many people are in need.

But if you’re angry now, then whoa, get prepared to have your head explode. The book industry does the same thing.

I know! It’s crazy for normal people to hear, but the shelf life of a book at your local B&N is much less than that of a sparkly coat at H&M. Typically a new book is in stores for a few months, tops. Then unsold copies are sent back to the publisher for a refund or sold to deep discount stores. If the books are mass market paperbacks and the store wants to send them to the publisher, the store will rip the front cover from the book and send that back as proof that the copy had not been sold. The books are then destroyed.

(That’s why lots of paperback books have a legal warning inside that says you shouldn’t buy it if it’s missing its cover.)

Even mass-market books are often over-printed, resulting in thousands of copies being made into pulp. It’s a horrible waste that drives up the average cost of books everywhere.

Should you be furious about that waste? Sure! But then you’d also have to be angry about hotels that replace the toilet paper rolls even when only half the roll is used; restaurants that serve free ice water sans request; Disney World, which replaces all its lightbulbs when they have 20% life remaining. These are all resources that someone, somewhere, really needs.

We’re a wasteful culture. Giving unsold coats to homeless people is the more obvious connection you can make, but I bet if you think about it you’ll see hundreds of other chances you have to conserve important stuff.

In conclusion: bring on the paperless book. I will now duck all tomatoes thrown by people obsessed with sniffing binding glue (AKA the “but I love the way books smell” argument.)

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