How green is digital?
The digital age is often touted as being greener than the days of typewriters and faxes because it’s reduced the amount of paper we use.
Being ‘green’, of course, is much more complicated than using less paper.
Mobile phones and computers are made of plastics and metals. Plastics are extremely toxic to the environment. When they’re thrown away, mobiles and computers become toxic chemical waste because these materials. Their batteries are seriously toxic too.
Nickel is an essential ingredient in mobiles and laptops, and is highly sought after for its versatility, especially for its use in alloys like stainless steel. We get it from strip mines, the kind where you dig out hectares of land to get to the riches underneath. Then there’s the energy use in the mining to take into account, not to mention the refining process
There are a few ways to purify nickel ore to get the metal to a useable state, but all of them involve high temperatures for roasting the ore and release gases into the atmosphere.
(Nickel isn’t the worst though; that upside down crown goes to aluminium which needs to be fired at about 2000°C to extract the metal.)
While we’re on energy use, electronic devices aren’t the best. It takes energy to manufacture them, and once they’re in use, it takes energy to use them. Until someone invents a battery that lasts for years (sounds nuclear to me) we’ll all be plugging our junk into the carbon economy.
And then there’s the disposability of devices. Most mobile and laptop users get new ones everyone two or three years. That means half or a third of adults in the developed world are throwing away a phone and a computer every year. That’s a whole lot of toxic waste that could be leaking into our drinking water.
The digital age isn’t looking so green anymore.
Until this week when Acer brought out its new Aspire laptops that are completely free of environmental baddies PVCs (polyvinyl chloride) and BFRs (brominated flame retardants.
The green laptop market seems to be small but growing as more people become environmentally conscious. Disappointingly for Apple evangelists, Macs are the least eco-friendly according to Greenpeace, and the highest rated is Lenovo (of ThinkPad fame) with brick manufacturer Dell hovering in the top five for the last few years.
For mobile makers, Nokia of the ubiquitous charger has been top of Greenpeace’s list for years, and Sharp, LG, Samsung and others all have solar powered phones on offer.
The present is kind of bleak but the big guns seem to be taking greening the digital world seriously. I’m not quite sure whether to be encouraged or really worried. What do you think?
Filed Under: Design • Sustainability • The Edge • Web
Is this article based on a press release from Acer? It’s inaccurate and out-of-date, specifically in regard to Apple and Greenpeace:
“Apple ranks highest among Greenpeace’s top tech companies
By Jim Dalrymple
JANUARY 7, 2010, 11:40 AM PT
The back and forth battle between Greenpeace and Apple has been going on for years, but in its new report, Greenpeace ranked Apple as its No. 1 company…”
http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/01/07/apple-ranks-highest-among-greenpeaces-top-tech-companies/#_jmp0_
According to the Greenpeace web site, dated January 2010, Apple rates quite a bit better than Acer.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up/which-companies-really-sell-gr
This is a truly bad article. As a previous commentator has pointed out Apple is now top of Greenpeace’s good guys list. So the basic research is an epic fail.
All the embodied energy points could equally be pointed at the paper economy, TV and radio. They all use computers to write, or even biros which are disposable plastic. Then there’s the giant machines used to strip mine forests, the genetic engineering of trees for pulp which is killing the life in nearby rivers, the distribution of paper to outlets every single day.
Yes people throw things away- what a surprise! Maybe making sure that the items are recyclable and made from recycled components and there’s a functional waste policy in place is the way to go rather than the simplistic attitude displayed here.
Maybe the writer feels that polycarbonate and aluminium produced, distributed worldwide and trashed – not recycled – in enormous quantities everyday as CDs, DVDs and blu-rays are greener than the same product delivered across the interwebs but somehow I doubt it.
Taking an ‘absolutist’ line, as this author does, quickly leads to the reality that unless you sit still under a tree and try not to breathe heavily you’re impacting on the environment. A recipe for disillusion and failure which I’m sure was not the author’s intention…
Cheers
Jeff – a crusty old greeny
thanks for the comments guys. i’m not sure how Jeff read it as taking an absolutist line; the point was to say, as Jeff reiterated, that ‘Being ‘green’, of course, is much more complicated than using less paper.’ Your reply is written as if you’re taking an opposing stance to the blog post, but it seems to be reinforcing it.
not being as familiar with the latest press releases from tech companies as andrew, i must have missed the one from Apple in all the madness of getting ready for our launch
Guys, the point is valid that there’s more to the “green ebook” debate than just the use of paper. However, as others have mentioned here, while in the “green-ness” stakes it may be neck-and-neck at the moment device manufacturers are improving the eco credentials of their products all the time. So there can only be one ultimate answer to the debate: ebooks.
Like the evolution of hybrid car technology, if we don’t take the first imperfect steps down the ereader path, we’ll never get to the “really” green solution. The Bookseller site did another great breakdown of the green ebook debate – you can find it at my ebook blog http://www.bookbee.com.au
Newspapers are wasteful, and what isn’t (for the most part) propaganda is advertising in any case.
In the case of computer vs paper, in that case, I’d suggest that the computer wins.
What about, say, a novel? A few hundred pages in a book format vs reading that on a desktop or laptop computer. How much energy is used in the (possibly many hours) reading from a computer screen, not to mention the space requirements, inconvenience, etc, vs reading a book? That energy is now spent, and no second person can read the content without again expending that energy. A book, on the other hand, can possibly be read by many people for the same initial energy investment. Perhaps that doesn’t always happen (especially for ‘personal’ copies), but libraries still manage to reuse books that people have read over and over.
-spxl
Suggestion: the article should be updated to indicate that the information is incorrect. Perhaps a note at the top or the end of the article. Leaving the correction to ’somewhere in the comments’ is not really showing a genuine concern to make good on the mistake.
I wonder what proportion of people print what they see on screen to read it for work, study or home? Or is that just the digital migrants who do this? I’ve learned that the digital natives (typically people under age 35 or there about) tend to read on screen, where as more mature people feel more comfortable reading printed screen content.
And what impact does this have on the environment? And if there is an environmental impact, does this become a consideration for professionals who write for the web?