Look for the large green box

If the ending of another school year has led to an influx of books in your home, you night want to consider donating them to Better World Books, an online for-profit bookseller for used and new books founded in 2002 by Christopher “Kreece” Fuchs, Xavier Helgesen and Jeff Kurtzman, who have stated their mission is to “extend the life-cycle of the book through reuse.”

When the drop boxes are filled with roughly 800 books, a pick up is arranged and a driver brings the books to a local distribution center within one business day. The books are then donated to literacy partners of Better World Books or sold on BetterWorldBooks.com, where one book is donated to someone in need for every book purchased, its website states.

In the Five Towns there are three huge green boxes measuring 4-feet in length, 5-feet in width and 5-feet in height. One is on Central Avenue in Lawrence outside of Peninsula Public Library. “We have had it for almost three years and it is overflowing every week,” said PPL Director Carolynn Matulewicz.

Drop boxes are also at Falcaro’s Plaza on Burnside Avenue in Lawrence and at Burnside Commons on Burnside Avenue in Inwood. On the BetterWorldBooks website you can plug in a zip code and find out where one is located. Kristen Moore, a spokeswoman for the Brixmor Property Group, that represents Falcaro’s Plaza, said the box there has “been in place for several years.”

The company claims to have donated more than 19 million books in nearly 16 years. Books that cannot be sold or donated are recycled into materials used to make brown tissue, cardboard and book covers. DVDs and CDs can also be donated.