I don't understand why some books are wrapped in plastic at all. Like is it to protect the cover? Prevent people from reading it at the book store? Some weird contract with a vendor that requires a percentage of books be wrapped? A quirk of the shop that printed the book?
Used to work in a warehouse that did exactly this, can confirm drove a forklift loading pallets of books on trucks and “humidity control” meant closing the bay doors that didn’t have trailers backed in so the snow wouldn’t blow inside.
Both is correct. But the second one is less about reading and more about making a crease. People who buy new books, want to be the first ones to read it. If they wouldn't care, they would just go to the library.
that's still bad though. it requires petroleum based processes to grow the corn and then convert the starch into a plastic like substance when the book could have just not been shrink wrapped. i get that you're joking, and i'm being pedantic, but not enough people realize bioplastics are not the solution, they're a gap measure, like EVs, and i'm usingeyour comment as a soapbox
Bioplastics also cause contaminated petroplastic recycling batches, are difficult to compost (my city, like many cities, does not have the facility), and release methane when breaking down in a landfill.
The way publishing industry has been for a very long time, authors (especially first time ones) don't get to pick whoever pays the best deal. Just whoever pays the first.
Edit: Also, theoretically, publishers should accommodate author wishes once a publication contract has been made. Actually not unheard of that a publisher would do something cool for their up and coming star. But this? Sloppiness on the publisher's part, plain and simple.
Well, stop and think about all those plastic medical devices that get used. Everything from syringes to hips, to air tubing, to the packaging of sterilized surgical instruments. That's a metric carp tonne of plastics. There are a LOT of life threat level safety devices that use plastics also.
We probably don't need to bottle soda pop or water in plastic bottles, but the use of plastics will never go away.
wouldnt you want to argue for the reduction of consumer plastic, then, so the rest of this super limited resource can be saved for medical and scientific purposes?
I did mention that plastic water bottles and other such consumer level disposable plastics aren't really required. Though the alternatives are much heavier and often bulkier than their plastic counterparts. Making them more difficult and costly to ship. And yeas, that includes basic food stuffs.