THERE are few bigger users of paper than the book industry - but now North-East entrepreneur Barry Crow has launched a project to reverse that trend.

Newcastle-based Mr Crow has created the book website greenmetropolis.com, which encourages readers to recycle books by selling to each other.

It is the UK's first dedicated used-book website, offering titles at reduced prices. Costs are kept low by removing added charges such as postage and packing. When a book is registered for sale on the website, the owner posts it to the purchaser, receiving £3 each time.

In addition, the site will donate 5p from the sale of every book to The Woodland Trust.

Mr Crow said: "The impact various industries place on deforestation is astronomical, with publishing companies alone ridding our planet of millions of trees.

"For example, the first print run of JK Rowling's latest Harry Potter novel stretched to two billion pages - that is 2.5m copies in the UK alone, and the equiv- alent of 8,333 trees.

"We are trying to encourage reading by making it more affordable and environmentally sustainable. It's not always necessary to buy books new and our long-term aim is to provide funds for more trees to be planted.

"We are not seeking worldwide domination, and at the same time we are not expecting to be a boom-and-bust website.

"Our aim is to create a community of readers who want to give something back to the environment. Publishers and authors are the first to make a huge initial profit from book sales - we want the environment to be the next to benefit."

For further information, log on to www.greenmetropolis.com.

Published: 09/09/2003