Donation program criticized

By Ruby Gee     11/11/10 6:00pm

The One Planet Books donation program has been accused of selling donated books for a profit by the Habitat for Humanity chapter at the University of Michigan. The Rice bookstore, as well as other Barnes&Noble bookstores nationwide, participates in this program, which is run by Barnes&Noble's sister company MBS Textbook Exchange.How the program works: When students try to sell their used textbooks to Barnes&Noble, the store refuses to buy back some of the books deemed "no-value." As an alternative to throwing these books away, the store asks students if they would like to donate the book to the One Planet program instead. Some store locations have set out decorated cardboard bins near the buyback area of the bookstore.

Reading Is Fundamental, a nonprofit children's literacy program, is paid an unspecified amount for every carton of collected textbooks. The books that the student agrees to donate are collected to be shredded and shipped off to a warehouse.

According to Barnes&Noble, approximately 70 percent of the donated books are transported to paper mills in Missouri to be recycled, while the rest are sold online through Amazon. com and the Barnes&Noble Online Marketplace.

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William Bradford, a former University of Michigan student who works closely with Michigan's Habitat for Humanity chapter, said this program took away a significant fundraiser from their organization chapter, and similar scenarios have happened on other campuses as well.

Bradford and the students investigated the background of the One Planet Books program online. According to Bradford, they probably would not have taken action if the donation program were run by another company.

"Once we found out that it was a Barnes&Noble program, then we just thought that was ridiculous from the standpoint of they're the ones telling students that the book is no good, and yet they're asking students to donate it so that they can sell it," Bradford said. "It seemed like a clear conflict of interests, and that was one of the reasons we thought that maybe it was even illegal for them to be doing this."

In response to inquiries about their One Planet program, Barnes&Noble released a statement on Oct. 21 saying that inaccurate information has been circulating about the One Planet program.

The public relations department of Barnes&Noble responded with a reformatted version of the same statement when the Thresher attempted to contact them regarding this controversy.

The statement, in addition to detailing what happens to books in the One Planet program, said that thousands of dollars have been donated to RIF as a result of the program.

However, based on sales from Amazon alone, Bradford and the students estimate that these donated books have generated more than

$2.3 million dollars in revenue.

"You would think that if they made extra money from the program, they would donate most of the money rather than take advantage of it," Baker College senior Kristin Lloyd said. "If the company's really making huge profits, then I wouldn't feel comfortable donating to them, but if it's for a good cause, I would."

In the Rice bookstore, there are no recycling bins or fliers advertising the existence of the One Planet program, but the store is still participating in this program.

Martel College sophomore Ben Chou, like many students, had not heard a lot about the One Planet donation program beforehand. However he said that if the allegations are true and that the earned money is not all going to charity, there are some moral issues behind this situation.

"I think recycling is a good thing," Chou said. "But if they're knowingly making a profit, then there's something ethically wrong."

The One Planet program has also been criticized for its questionable impact on the environment. On behalf of the involved students, from page 1Bradford authored a response to Barnes&Noble's statement that questioned the legitimacy of the One Planet Program's recycling aspect.

"The very fact that Barnes&Noble is attempting to cover this up as a recycling program is an insult to every company that is environmentally conscious," Bradford wrote. "If Barnes&Noble was truly concerned about recycling these books and not concerned with profits from deceiving students, these books could be redirected directly to paper recycling plants in closer proximity to these schools."

Brown College senior Carl Nelson said the idea behind the One Planet program is really good but added that he would need to see the numbers before he could determine how beneficial the program actually is.

"You're conserving the paper, which is great," Nelson said. "But you end up using energy when you transport the books, consuming non-renewable resources like oil and adding greenhouse gases to the environment."

Bradford and the students at the Habitat for Humanity chapter started a letter-writing campaign this semester to inform local media organizations and student newspapers nationwide.

Bradford estimated that they have contacted thus far approximately 100 schools out of the 600 universities with Barnes&Noble-

affiliated bookstores.

He said their motivation for getting the word out stemmed from wanting to inform students about the unethical behavior behind this program.

"It's just another example of how the textbook industry is sort of out of control," Bradford said. "They can do whatever they want, and students don't really have a say in what goes on.

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