Final Harry Potter Book to go Green

by Janet Ritz

Scholastic Books has announced that the final installment of the best selling Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be printed on enviro-approved paper. With a first printing of 12 million (yes, that was million) copies, this is a big deal.

As reported by CNN:

Scholastic Inc. announced Tuesday that it had agreed with the Rainforest Alliance, a conservation organization that works with the business community, on tightened environmental standards for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," coming out July 21 with a first printing of 12 million.

Now, even if you're not a Harry Potter fan (who isn't?), this has got to sound good. 12 million green copies (that's 30% post consumer fiber), with the deluxe edition (100,000 copies, to start) at 100% post consumer fiber.

At 784 pages each (9,480,000,000 pages when you take those 12 million copies into account), that's a lot of post consumer fiber. And, at 12 million kids (big and small), that's a lot of people getting the message that recycling is cool as they read the last Harry Potter book.

Very cool.

More from the article:

• The paper used will contain "a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber."
• Nearly two-thirds of the 16,700 tons of paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international organization with a mission to "promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests."
• A "deluxe" edition of the new book, which has a first printing of 100,000, will be printed on paper that contains "100 percent post-consumer waste fiber."

I was a fan of J.K. Rowling and Scholastic before this.

Now I'm in awe.

Here are the links again:

The CNN story.

Scholastic Books

The Rainforest Alliance

The book is set to be released on July 21st.

Hopefully, other publishers will follow suit.