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Harry Potter’s Lasting Legacy
July 21, 2007, midnight – Many were in line awaiting the global release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the last installment of the Harry Potter series. During the first 24 hours of the book’s release, it sold 8.3 million copies in the US alone. With 784 pages per book, that’s a lot of paper. An estimated 16,700 tons of paper have been used to print the 12 million copies of the book on shelves now.
Despite the colossal amount of paper used, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” has been dubbed the “greenest book in publishing history”. Due to the request of J.K. Rowling, and the collaborative efforts of Markets Initiative and The Rainforest Alliance, Rowling’s publishing house, Scholastic Inc. has agreed to publish the book sustainably. 65% of the paper used came from responsibly managed forests (Forest Stewardship Council [FSC] certified); and around 30% of the paper used came from post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber. To date, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” sets the record as the largest purchase of FSC certified paper used in the printing of a single book title.
Above is the environmental impact reduction graphic, with the Muggle and Hogwarts conversions in the table below conducted by Markets Initiative.
Global Ecological Savings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Impact |
In Muggle Terms |
In Hogwarts Terms |
197,685 trees not cut for this book |
That’s an area 2.5 times the size of New York’s Central Park |
That’s a lot of Whomping Willows! |
327,657,453 litres of water conserved |
Enough water to fill 218 Olympic sized pools |
6.3 trillion batches of Polyjuice Potion |
7,876,000 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions avoided |
Equal to taking 1,577 cars off the road for a year! |
Equal to 8,420 dragon burps |
20,404,246 kg of solid waste diverted from landfills |
That’s the weight of 4,999 full grown elephants! |
Equal to the weight of 2,364 fully-grown dragons like Norbert |
137,609 million BTUs of electricity conserved |
Enough energy to power 1,512 homes for a year! |
Equivalent to the energy in 154 million lightning bolts |
This 5-year endeavor by Markets Initiative and The Rainforest Alliance, has led to more than 300 international publishers printing on paper that help safeguard endangered forests, and 35 new eco-friendly lines of paper.
Click here to learn more about Markets Initiative and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”.
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Posted by Sean on 07/23
