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Kuopio City Library with plastic-free books

Kuopio City Library with plastic-free books

The eco-friendly initiative saves both money and time

Plastic is inescapable in the City Library of the Finnish Municipality of Kuopio. To combat this, it recently became the first plastic-free library in the country. Up until now, only scientific libraries housed books without protective plastic covers. No public library in Finland has ever done this before, confirmed Kupio City Library.

The management has decided to buy new books without protective plastic covers. The experiment is currently underway, covering dozens of books and the results are already looking promising. Readers returned one of the many cover-free books without any major damage. Such a simple act can do much for the protection of the environment. But it’s there are other, more practical benefits as well - the new practice could save money and time too. Books that no longer need to be covered will make their way to the libraries faster than before and thanks to the spared expenses, the money can instead be used for the acquisition of new books. Plastic covers can be quite expensive. The eco initiative could be of interest to other libraries in Finland and Europe. Libraries in Finland acquired a total of about 1.6 million books in 2018.

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