As an avid reader, I don’t necessarily mind having an apartment overflowing with books. However, I’ve also read enough books to know that not all of them are worth keeping (in their original form, at least). I’ve been experimenting with new ways to salvage books. Here are a few ideas to keep a tome from the tomb.
BENEFITS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: I couldn’t find any precise statistics on how many books end up in landfills every year. But I think it’s fair to assume that old books constitute a good chunk of the approximately 54.3 million tons of paper and paperboard that wind up in landfills each year.1
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Cost: Low. If you’re like me, you probably have a lot of old books lying around. If not and you are interested in these projects, local thrift stores are always a good place to find an abandoned volume for little cash.
Time and effort: Varies, low – medium, depending on the chosen project.
Practical Projects
- Create a secret safe that you can hide in plain sight! Book safes are easy to make with a thick old hard back. Simply cut out the center of all of the pages with an exact-o knife and throw in your extra cash, jewelry, or private letters.
- There are bookshelves and there are book shelves. Bookshelves require wood and carpentry skills, but “book shelves” are easy to make. Just find some old hardbacks, then attach them to the wall with three L-shaped brackets. Two brackets support the shelf on the bottom, the third is drilled into the wall just above the shelf so as to sandwich the book and prevent it from falling off of the wall.
3 - Small book purses are a great way to show off favorite large volumes. First, find an old hardcover book with a spine that is a good size for the bottom of a bag. Next take out all of the pages so that only the cover remains. Find some matching liner fabric and glue panels of fabric across the bottom and top of the book to create sides for the purse. Line the purse and attach some handles and your new “book bag” will be ready for action.
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“EnLightened” Projects: You can’t read without a light, so why not turn books into objects that will facilitate the exploration of more books?
- The easiest way to use old books for a lamp is to decoupage some pages to a lampshade.
- If a lampshade isn’t creative enough, you can create a lamp base. If you have a drill, a stack of hardbacks, and a lamp kit, you have enough. Drill a hole through the center of the books and slide the threaded lamp rod through the books. You could even add a book covered lampshade if you really want to go crazy with the book theme.
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6 - For some more whimsical task lighting or a nightlight, you can actually put lights inside of a book. Cut out the middle of some old hardbacks, similar to the way you would to create a book safe, then add a string of lights in the middle. To make the light brighter, make some pinholes that connect the outside with the book’s hollow inner chamber.
7 - Next Christmas I’m going to take on a Book Tree. It looks like you can simply stack the books and drape the lights on top…no destruction required. After Christmas it could make a fun game, book Jenga anyone?
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The Unsalvagable: If you aren’t able to think of a creative way to recycle your old books, the next best thing to do is to recycle them. There are three sites I use to do this:
- The Freecycle network is an online grassroots organization that provides a place for you to set up meetings to give away (and receive) free stuff, including books.
- Bookmooch is an online community for sharing used books. You can give away books in exchange for books you want.
- The start-up Thrift Recycling Management, recently renamed Discover Books, was recently granted $8.5 million by venture capitalists to perfect their process of book recycling.9 They scan ISBNs or enter titles into a database, and their computers use an algorithm to determine if the volume is fit to be resold, donated to charity, or consigned to the recycling plant.
The Inspirational: Perhaps books have a special inspirational power for the artists who work with them. Whatever it is, some amazing art creations have been made from books. My favorites are by an anonymous artist who left a series of book sculptures at various cultural institutions throughout the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. The artist left eleven sculptures total, all “in support of libraries, books, words and ideas.”10
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You can also see a whole host of other (non-Edinburgh) book art, including a chair and some very impressive sculptures here: http://www.offbeatearth.com/dont-like-reading-other-uses-for-books/.
