Many of us have the same guilty little secret - our homes hold stacks of excess paper. Maybe it’s the daily newspaper that mounts up. Perhaps glossy magazines grace every surface. At least both of these pulp products are more recyclable compared to books. But that doesn’t really address the issue of cutting trees to provide relatively disposable reading material.

It’s difficult to balance a passion for reading and environmental stewardship. If you are caught between a tree and a bookshelf, some alternatives might provide a breath of fresh air. Of course, there is always the library - but budgetary constraints and other borrowers may result in a long wait to hold that new magazine or book. If you want to step up the pace, check out Zinio.com http://zinio.com/.

Zinio provides digital publishing content, including a wide selection of magazines, textbooks, and classic books. Consider that the conventional magazine market is huge - many people have subscriptions of printed magazines and supplement these with impulse purchases at newsstands. According to Rich Maggiotto, CEO of Zinio, “In the US alone, 12 billion magazine issues are printed every year.” It’s a staggering number. Add in the fact that the US is certainly not alone is its love for magazines; many countries have thriving magazine publishing industries, particularly across Europe and Asia.

Maggiotto points out, and it’s probably true in most homes, that a lot of print media goes straight into the recycling without much inspection. “I thought there was a lot of waste going into this kind of production of content that really wasn’t being consumed as rigorously as some other types of media,” he explains. “When I started to dig into the numbers, because the numbers speak for themselves, I think it’s this very quiet sort of ecological disaster happening.” Production inefficiencies are widespread. In fact, only 30 percent of issues actually sell. The rest are boxed up, shipped back to publishers, and discarded. Even the magazines that find a home may not be recycled when their time is up.

By accessing magazines through Zinio instead of in print form, consumers literally save trees from the chopping block. Maggiotto estimates, “With the millions of paperless issues we deliver each month, it has been calculated to a savings that equates to 10,000 trees every 30 days. We expect this to grow significantly as more consumers embrace the paperless alternative to reading their favorite publications.”

Another nice thing is that you can access magazines from across the globe and in different languages. No more fruitless searches for obscure titles or extortionate overseas postage. And the waiting time is drastically reduced, so you can read the current issue when it is released - not days, weeks, or even months later. Of course, you can read it whenever you like - maybe you’re used to a long lag-time for the latest fashion updates.

Just this week, the company launched Zinio INSIDE. The new search tool allows free web access to all Zinio’s digital content. That includes millions of pages, magazines, textbooks, and digital books. The company is adding travel guides, cookbooks, and other resources as well, and all of this material will be fully available for searching.

If you are curious, try out Zinio for free. A new initiative called Read Green http://goreadgreen.com/ offers a year-long digital subscription to the magazine of your choice - there are more than 20 to choose from. And it’s completely free. To further sweeten the deal, Zinio has teamed up with Ecounit http://www.ecounit.com/ to plant trees across school and university campuses. Each additional paid subscription bought through goreadgreen.com will buy Ecounit credits for this project.

It’s time that publishers and consumers work together to end needless waste. With forests facing other challenges, as well as playing crucial environmental roles, it’s ridiculous to think of cutting down trees only to dump their glossy, bleached and dyed carcasses in overflowing landfill sites.

UPDATE: Zinio has also teamed up with AboutMyPlanet in a new green initiative. We are in the process of releasing two new books, along with specials from other companies. Zinio is the exclusive sponsor for the eBook entitled "Go Green Revolution: My Life", it's a project that's been in the making for over 6 months and we're very excited to be releasing it and to have Zinio support it. To find out a lot more information along with an EARLY BIRD SIGNUP goto http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/green-tips-book/ .