About 320 million books end up in landfills each year — part of the problem is that we donate or sell books to businesses that aren’t transparent about where our books end up (whether they’ve successfully found a new home or end up in landfills). Even when books aren’t sent directly to landfills and are instead recycled, the recycling process is itself harmful to the environment, as well as the resources used to transport these books back and forth between retailers. The aim of this capstone project is to allow young adult readers to be conscious of where their books come from and, most importantly, where they go after they no longer want them in their personal library. Bookends is a platform where these people are able to safely and actively buy and sell previously owned books in an online marketplace. The principles and mission of Bookends as a company was important for me to pursue because it would minimize the need for a middle entity in second-hand book buying, create a community for readers, and reduce the amount of waste in landfills contributed by discarded books.
