Literate AND green? Say no more.

I’m a reader, always have been…love me a good book. Color me a bookworm. I’m also a book recycler – I trade ‘em, donate ‘em, sell ‘em or just keep ‘em forever and ever. But Eco-Libris goes one step further.

Eco-Libris is this rad website that allows you to plant a tree to replace the tree used to make that book you’re reading right now. Their goal this year is to plant enough trees to counter a half a million books by the end of 2008. According to Eco-Libris, we’re blowing through 20 million trees every year to produce the books sold in the U.S. alone.

The cost to replace those felled trees is minimal…for example, to plant 5 trees it costs $5…but the positive impact on the planet is ginormous. Your do-gooder trees are planted in developing countries, like those in Africa, and Eco-Libris promises “…that your trees will be planted where they provide significant value for both the environment and the local communities, who are very much involved and play an important part in the planting projects.”

I still say this doesn’t absolve you if you simply trash your trashy novels as opposed to giving them a good afterlife, but it’s a good start. I just bought my first trees, to begin to balance out my sagging bookshelves.

Now it’s your turn!