Are We Eco Enough When Computing Or Using Technologies? - Every IT does his/her bit to reduce Global Warming

Have we all (tech people) ever thought that we are contributing to, if not alarming, to some extent of global warming? We all know recycling is important, and we all condemn that governments are not doing enough posing restrictions on factories or manufacturers for producing various "unhealthy gases". But, how many of us have more than one computers, home studios, gaming machines, and they are always plugged in (consuming power even when not in use); how many of us are craving for new models of technologies when we can still make good use of the old ones? All the materials for new techs are precious resources from our earth. Shouldn't it be the time we all do something to save the earth, especially IT people, the INTELLIGENT group of human beings!

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Good topic for discussion. I'm more concerned about population and available resources. Soon we'll run out of those resources. I don't think all the precious resources are used in IT materials. And it is completely wasted. There is recycling of many IT products. Apple, dell and many other manufacturers use recyclable resources. Even hosting companies are gree these days. Green in means that they're using natural ways of generating electricity. Google also generates it's own power and using it for their benefits.

There are plenty of places where there is resources wasted and return is none. For example, F1 races. Where we're getting some returns ? and in what way ? F1 is 100% wastage of fuel. Why not find such wastage first before blaming IT domain for wastage of resources.

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It has to be said that most of the blame for wastage lies with manufacturers. For example, look at food at your local supermarket and consider the vast amount of packaging there, and how much of that is not recyclable. As consumers we have no choice over that packaging, and there is nothing we can do about it. The same goes for the manufacturing process and the energy used there. Encouraging manufacturers to use recycled materials and less energy (perhaps by subsidising recycled plastic and paper, or tax breaks or something) would be a good start.



I have one desktop PC and one laptop at the moment (although I'll likely sell the laptop soon). All of the parts of my desktop PC are connected to one plug, so I can switch the whole lot off when I shut the PC down, and only switch it on when I need it. I also manually switch on things like the printer and speakers rather than having them on all the time for no reason. I'll admit the reason is mainly to reduce my electricity bill, but still...



The best way to get over the use of new materials is reuse rather than recycling. Sell your old equipment rather than scrapping it, or even give it away via Freecycle or to a charity. In the UK we now have the WEEE Directive, which forces electronics manufacturers to take their products back when we're done with them, and they then have to dispose of them safely and cleanly. This has encouraged manufacturers to eliminate things like mercury and lead from their electronics just to save them the disposal costs when the consumers eventually get rid of their products.

 

 

 

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Nope, we are not blame at all .
When it comes to power consumption we have to keep in mind that the elektronics we use nowadays is way more efficient compared to 10 years ago. Not only do we use more efficient power converters, 80+ efficient power supplies but hardware and software optimalisations also let use do tasks faster (a Pentium II converting a DVD will probably use more energy compared to a Core2Duo because it has to stay on much longer).
CRT monitors are quickly being replaced by the much more efficient TFT/LCD/LED monitors which also seriously decreases the consumed energy.

When it comes to limited resources and waste I'd like to note that a lot of the hardware is being sold when it's not used anymore, imagine everybody has to sell all of it's hardware brand new. Manufacturers did improve their production processes (eg. Intel minimized the use of lead in their microprocessors and cell phones are massively being recycles (especialy the rare and expensive stuff like gold)).

We are not to blame because we as individuals have no serious impact when we switch to a greener living, it's the big companies and manufacturers that have to be greener.

And the worst thing imho are all the carbon power plants that are still running ... we live in 2009, carbon is oldskool and I can't believe that it's still being use. Nuclear powerplants are seriously more efficient and even tough it produces a lot of nuclear waste it at least won't create CO2 or other poisonous gasses (like sulfur).

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