They could, but recycling is still the third resort of the triad. Trade paperbacks can be reused (shipped back to the publisher and warehoused to sell again), which is generally more environmentally friendly than recycling for raw materials.
I was told once that pulped books were sometimes used to manufacture fireworks, so when I see a sky-rocket going off, I occasionally joke that it was one of my books. But the main problem was the cost of shipping that nobody want to absorb, not the retailers, not the distributers, not the publishers, and certainly not the authors. One hopes that some of the pulped paper was put to good use, but the main thing was to get rid of excess copies because it cost too much to ship them back to the publisher or warehouse them. And who was going to pay to have them shipped to a recycling center in mass quantities? True story: I once visited a wholesale distribution plant in Florida where unsold paperbacks were being stripped and pulped on an assembly line that kept on going and going and going. It was a sight no writer, editor, or reader should ever see. It was the Abatoir of Authors' Dreams. P.S. On the bright side, a lot of books these days ARE printed in whole or in part on recycled paper. Often there's a statement to this effect on copyright page.
It’s such a strange practice as the book type isn’t that different. It’s not like they are as radical as hard backs
A mototway in England was built from pulped Mills & Boon books. People are driving over love and a thousand broken hearts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/3330245.stm
It's not just about the physical nature of the book, it's about the way the entire book industry was set up to deal with them. MMPBs were designed for sale on newsstands along with newspapers and magazines and the like, and so the manufacturing and distribution system was set up to treat them the same way, as cheap products churned out en masse with the expectation that the ones that didn't sell would be destroyed. That market doesn't exist anymore, and for bookstores and online retailers, trade paperbacks and hardcovers make more sense.
Sad story from the days of "Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace". The publisher, Dorling Kindersley, way-overestimated sales for their "Incredible Cross-sections", "Cutaways" and "Picturepedia" books for that SW film. In Australia, those titles were destined to be pulped, because pulping the excess books was more economical that warehousing them and waiting for them to eventually sell. I was working for the Education Department and Dorling Kindersley sent my boss a letter, offering to send out a free copy of each title for every school library in New South Wales - if the Department was willing to put up the postage and packing cost. We worked out how much that amount would be and there was simply no money in the budget for such a large, unexpected expense. (It was thousands of Australian dollars.) My boss offered them a compromise. What if school librarians could attend the warehouse and pick up their school's free copies? No, not possible. Members of the public entering the warehouse would go against their Work, Health and Safety Plan. So the books got pulped. (Dorling Kindersley disappeared soon after, being reborn as the "DK" imprint under a new owner.)
A related question would be why Kindle editions are not less expensive, given that nothing is actually printed on paper?
Exactly. You're not just paying for the paper and ink. You're paying for all the time and labor on the part of the authors, editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, designers, cover artists, art directors, etc. And those are same regardless of what format the book is published in. The PP&B (paper, printing, and binding) costs were always just a fraction of the expenses involved in producing a book, including, not incidentally, the author's advance. And with media tie-ins, of course, you have to factor in the cost of acquiring the license in the first place. Part of the price tag for STAR TREK books comes from whatever S&S has to pay CBS for the right to publish the books.
Are ebooks not cheaper than paperback/hardcover outside of Canada? Here they can be nearly $10 cheaper. For example, I picked up Shadows Have Offended for Kindle for $11.99, where the paperback is going for $20.40.
It depends. In the case of Shadows Have Offended, the ebook is currently $12, and the paperback is $14. I'm guessing that the paperback difference is Canada is due to shipping costs across the border.
I've seen a few cases where the e-book is significantly cheaper, with the Desert Cursed series by Shannon Mayer the e-books are all free if you have Kindle Unlimited, or $3.99 if you don't, and the trade paperbacks are either $13.99 or $14.99. I can't remember any others of the top of my head, but I've seen other books with similar price differences.
Looks like those are about half a step away from self-published, so the author likely has more freedom to set the ebook price, and the paperbacks are probably priced based on POD costs. Not really comparable to major publishers.
I have noticed, unlike traditional paperback books (whether MMPB's or Trade's) the prices for E-books does vary greatly. I have gotten some for as low as $2.99, while recently I started reading the Slings & Arrows series and they are pretty consistently $6.99. Now I have noticed when buying some of the newer Trades prices have varied based on sales, but the list price is still $16. There seems to be much more variance in list prices for E-books.