Guilt-Free Reading

You've heard of carbon credits? Now there are paper credits, too.

A new company is offering to make reading guilt-free -- for a small sum. Pay into a fund, and every time you buy a new book, the company will plant a tree.

About 20 million trees are cut down each year to make virgin paper, and founders of the company hope to offset this consumption. "Every book you read was once a tree," reads the company website. "Now you can plant a tree for every book you read."

The company, based in Novato, Ca, and Delaware was started by a group of Israelis, including "eco-entreprenuer" Raz Godelnik. He was the co-founder of Hemper Jeans, which produced jeans made from hemp. (Which is still illegal to grow in many parts of the U.S.)

I figure I read about 50 books a year. Planting 50 trees would cost me about $47.

The founders list their favorite books on their website, too.