One of the big selling points of the Kobo Clara 2e e-reader is that it is made of 80% recycled plastic and 10% ocean recycled plastic. This is the first e-reader in the world to be this environmentally friendly and it won’t be the last. Kobo has confirmed with Good e-Reader that they will make future e-readers with recycled plastic, which is good news for the environment.
Kobo disclosed that the 10% ocean-bound, and that building the Clara 2E will keep 200,000 plastic water bottles from the world’s oceans – a figure arrived at by estimating how many units of the Kobo Clara 2e will be manufactured this year.
Kobo intends on releasing future devices made of recycled plastic. “That’s our intention, to roll it out with future devices, as long as we’re able to keep the quality where it is,” Erin Ierullo, senior manager, global communications at Kobo. It’s our first foray into that, because we didn’t want to do it unless we could make sure the devices kept the standard for Kobo that we really value,” Ierullo said of the eco move.
“Customer feedback is one of the biggest things we keep an ear out for,” Kobo senior manager Victoria Cacioppo said. “It’s something we’ve heard in the past and the voices are getting louder.” Cacioppo said the company also provides long term firmware updates to much older devices to discourage people from upgrading. She also said future Kobo products will have improved repairability.
Kobo e-readers used to be easily repaired, the backs came off and it was relatively simple to replace a battery or upgrade the internal SD card. In the past five or six years it has been getting increasingly difficult, as they have grafted the backplate with glue, and it is hard to find battery replacements anymore. If what Kobo says is true and they will go back to their roots of making it easy to replace the battery or screen, this will get people more invested into the Kobo brand. There are some uncertainties, will they sell components directly? Right now, they don’t.
The Kobo Clara 2e is currently available for pre-order and will ship out on September 22nd. You can order it form the main Kobo website for $129 USD or $159 CAD. If you live outside of these two countries, you can pre-order it from the Good e-Reader Store.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
