City of St. Louis
Department of Streets
Refuse Division
Recycling Program

Book Reuse and Recycling

What You Can Do

NOTE: The following information is also available as a downloadable PDF Flyer or Word Document.

REUSE

Although you may be done with them, your used books could be valuable resources to someone else. Rather than placing them in the wastebasket, consider contributing them to an organization that can reuse them. Inquire with schools, churches, youth groups, senior centers, or local charities. You may also find a second home for your books at thrift stores, consignment shops, or secondhand stores. The following list includes nonprofit organizations or events that focus on reusing books:

American Library Association
Web Site: http://www.ala.org/ala/alalibrary/libraryfactsheet/alalibraryfactsheet12.htm
Phone: 800.545.2433
Address: 50 E. Huron, Chicago, Illinois 60611
Notes: The American Library Association provides a list of organizations that collect books for distribution either within or outside the United States.

books A Thousand Books
Web Site: http://www.athousandbooks.us
E-Mail: donatebooks@AThousandBooks.us
Phone: 314.255.9035
Address: c/o Tony Renner, 4735 Lewis Place, St. Louis, Missouri 63113
Notes: “A Thousand Books’ mission is to obtain and distribute new and clean, serviceable used books to school and community libraries in foreign lands. Since English is a common language of culture, commerce and education, A Thousand Books believes it is important to provide English language books to students in other countries to develop a more mature, deeper and wellrounded exposure to our language. Books are plentiful and inexpensive in the United States, but books in the English language are scarce and expensive in many other, less economicallydeveloped countries. A Thousand Books obtains books through direct donations from individuals and companies. We also seek funds necessary to mail them…We are operated by a volunteer board of directors, and volunteers who solicit books in addition to the tasks of sorting, organizing, packing and shipping them.

What Kinds Of Books? Picture any book that would be appropriate for a junior/senior high school student. Books should be in good shape and of fairly recent vintage. Multi-volumes, such as Time-Life Library sets, nature books, classic literature, juvenile novels, art books, travel guides, dictionaries . . . (no 15-year-old encyclopedias, please). Hardbound and paperback are both fine. In fact, a good mix is best.”

school book Adopt A Library (or) Adopt A School
Web Site: http://adoptalibrary.org (or) http://www.adoptaschool.org
E-Mail: AdoptALibrary@aol.com
Notes: “…to promote world literacy, to help and encourage donations to libraries and schools in the U.S. and around the world, and to keep books out of landfills!...This website keeps books and magazines out of landfills by encouraging people to donate used books and library equipment to schools and libraries around the world. AdoptALibrary.org does not ask for or accept donations - all donations go directly to libraries and schools, or organizations that aid them.”

BookCrossing
Web Site http://www.bookcrossing.com
The "3 Rs" of BookCrossing...
1. Read a good book
2. Register it (along with your journal comments), get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number), and label the book
3. Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, "forget" it in a coffee shop, etc.), and get notified by email each time someone comes here and records journal entries for that book. And if you make Release Notes on the book, others can Go Hunting for it and try to find it!"

Carondelet Family YMCA
Web Site: http://www.ymcastlouis.org/carondelet/home.html
E-Mail: carondelet@ymcastlouis.org
Phone: 314.353.4960 Fax: 314.353.3350
Address: 600 Loughborough Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63111
Notes: They will accept drop-off donations of books from March through August 1st (their fundraising book sale is held at the end of August). If you have boxes of books, pull up to the side doors and they’ll help you unload.

child with books Greater St. Louis Book Fair
Web Site: http://www.angelfire.com/biz/STLBookFair
E-Mail: LR1997@aol.com or stlouisbookfair@gmail.com
Notes: “If you wish to donate 3 or more boxes of books, please call (314) 993-1995 to arrange for a book pickup. You may also drop books off at the little, yellow house on the Wash U parking lot across from the Ritz in Clayton. In addition, small amounts of books may be left on the loading docks of [all] Macys, [except for Northwest Plaza]. Please, no books should be left at Northwest Plaza Macys Loading docks at Macys and the little house [at Washington University] will continue year round.”

Hands Across the Water
Web Site: http://www.surplusbooksforcharity.org
E-Mail: literacyforall@yahoo.com
Address: c/o Recycling Concepts, 8526 Mid County Industrial Court, Missouri 63114
Phone: 314.423.1940
Notes: They have a dropoff area where they accept hard or soft cover book donations (NO MANUALS) during office hours (Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:00pm). For a fee, arrangements can be made for large quantities to be picked up. "Our goal is both the promotion of conservation and reuse principles here in the USA and literacy and education globally. We promote responsible reuse internationally of the many fine books we collect from schools, libraries, publishing houses and individuals in the USA. We provide the books we collect to needy schools, libraries and other community based nonprofit organizations overseas."

Jewish Community Center books
Web Site: http://jccstl.com
E-Mail: webmaster@jccstl.org
Phone: 314.432.5700
Address: Carlyn H. Wohl Building, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63146
Notes: They have a dropoff area where they accept book donations during building hours (Monday-Thursday 5:30 a.m.-10:00 p.m., Friday 5:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m., Saturday 1:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m., Sunday 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.). They accept book donations all year, except during their fundraising used book sales (a paperback sale a couple of days in July and a week-long used book sale in August). They can write a tax receipt. Their Maintenance Staff can help bring them in.

Paper Back Swap
Web Site: http://www.paperbackswap.com
E-Mail: rpickering@paperbackswap.com
Address: 3651 Peachtree Parkway, Suite E-390, Suwanee, Georgia 30024
Notes: "List at least 9 books in the system to become an active member and receive 3 free credits to get you started trading. List as many books as possible to be more successful in trading. Browse our online list of books posted by club members, and use your credits to order books. Selected books are delivered right to your mailbox, for free! When other members order books that you’ve listed, you mail them from your mailbox and you pay the postage (usually $1.59). You get one credit (good for one book) for every book you mail when it is received by the club member who requested it. List as many books as you like. The more books you mail to other members, the more credits you'll receive."

Paperspine, Inc.
Web Site: http://www.paperspine.com
E-Mail: support@paperspine.com
Phone: 866.916.7323 (READ)
22525 SE 64th Place, Suite 249, Issaquah, Washington 98027
Notes: "Online book rental service; Choose from over 150,000 titles; Fast, free shipping; No long-term contract; Plans start from $9.95/month." You create a list of books that you want to read, they mail to you the books on your list, and you keep the books as long as you want. When you're finished, mail the books back to them and they'll send out more that are on your "to read" list.

Ready Readers
Web Site: http://www.readyreaders-stlouis.com
E-Mail: readyreaders@earthlink.net
Phone: 314.991.1903
Address: 9378 Olive Boulevard, Suite 213, St. Louis, Missouri 63132
Notes: "Ready Readers is a volunteer program for at-risk pre-Kindergarten children. We read aloud to them and give them new books to help inspire them to want to learn to read. We also give gently used picture books to the children's teachers, whose classrooms often lack good read-aloud books. Last year, we gave 3,000 gently used books to the neediest preschools. We also use good donated books for our high school readers, so that they will have books on hand to read to the children."
Books should: be for children under 5 years old, have pictures that are big enough for 10-20 children to see, be read aloud in 5 minutes, be new, like new or very gently used, not have religious themes. Please call to arrange a book drop off.

Thomas Dunn Memorials
Web Site: http://www.tdunn.org/programs.html
E-Mail: info@tdunn.org
Fax: 314.353.3388
Phone: 314.353.3050
Address: 3113 Gasconade, St. Louis, Missouri 63118-4346
Notes: They host an annual Spring Book Fair. Please call Kathy at 314.353.3050 for drop-off times. All donations are tax-deductible.

Each year, from January 15th through February 28th, they accept gently used donations of the following items: books, books on tape, bookshelves, CDs, DVDs, games, magazine racks, puzzles, and videotapes.

Not accepted: Bibles, dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines, or text books.

RECYCLE

Central Paper Stock Company Incorporated
Phone: 314.521.8686
Address: 6665 Jonas Place, St. Louis, Missouri 63134
Notes: Outside of their offices they maintain a container where books can be dropped off free-of-charge.

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