Harry Potter goes 'green' for next instalment

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JK Rowling says her next Harry Potter book will be printed on environmentally friendly paper.

So far, her novels about the teenage wizard at Hogwarts school, have used up an estimated 6.5 million trees.

The Scottish writer is among a number of authors, including Andy McNab, Philip Pullman and Ben Elton, who have pledged their support for the environment by using recycled paper.

Techniques pioneered in Canada allow, for the first time, paper from waste such as office paperwork to be used to make books, says The Times.

Rowling has guaranteed that her sixth Harry Potter book will be printed either on recycled or on "ancient forest-friendly" paper, which is sourced from sustainable planted forests.

At present, no major publishers of fiction in Britain use 100% recycled paper.

The Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was printed without chopping down a single tree, saving an estimated 40,000 of them.


Story filed: 10:50 Friday 3rd October 2003

Oh, that's great. Usually I don't care, but it's nice to be environmentally friendly anyway

I was just so shocked to hear how many trees it took to print all the HP books. I guess it's something that you don't think about, until you hear the facts. And that is just a scary thought. That's a HUGE amount of trees, and I don't want this world to be treeless. We really need to come up with a better way of books. Someday, we will go completely electronic. You will have to buy a download, or disc, place it on your computer and transfer it to your palm pilot, or just read it on your computer. That would definately be recycle friendly material.

Good for her! Now if we could only get rid of all the paper the mailman brings.