How Green is IT?

In a world which is clearly getting warmer (yes, it is) we should all clearly do anything we can to try and limit that situation.

In a world where we human seem to bring devastation wherever we go, we should do all we can to limit our impact.

So how those of us in the IT industry stand up to close scrutiny.

How about our recycling credentials?

Today The Register reported on this report produced by Greenpeace on the impact of IT equipment refresh an recycling;

Expansion of the global market for electrical and electronic products continues to accelerate, while the lifespan of the products is dropping, resulting in a corresponding explosion in electronic scrap.

As noted by UNEP (2005)*:

“Every year, 20 to 50 million tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment waste (“e-waste”) are generated world-wide, which could bring serious risks to human health and the environment. While 4 million PCs are discarded per year in China alone.”

This rapidly growing “e-waste” stream presents additional difficulties because a wide range of hazardous chemicals are, or have in the past been, used in components of electrical and electronic devices, and these subsequently create substantial problems with regard to handling, recycling and disposal of obsolete products.

And:

Results confirm that all stages in the processing of electrical and electronic wastes have the potential to release substantial quantities of toxic heavy metals and organic compounds to the workplace environment and, at least to the extent studied, also to surrounding soils and water courses. Among the toxic heavy metals most commonly found in elevated levels in wastes from the industry, as well as in indoor dusts and river sediments, were those known to have extensive use in the electronics sector, i.e.

• lead and tin, most probably arising in large part from solder and, in the case of lead, batteries
• copper, for example from wires and cables
• cadmium, from a variety of uses including batteries and solder joints
• antimony,most probably from use of antimony trioxide as a flame retardant additive in plastics and resins as well from use in electrical solders

Many other metals associated with the electronics industry were also relatively abundant in many samples, including barium, chromium, cobalt, gold,mercury, nickel, silver and zinc.

So not too well on that one then.

How about our usage of power and the inevitable production of green-house gases that accompanies it?

Well for this I’m not going to use a study, I’m going to use personal observation, self critique.

When was the last time I considered power consumption in a purchasing decision for piece of hardware? Never.

When was the last time I considered the power requirements of a piece of software? Well never of course, because that would require me to do a lot of study on how the software works.

When was the last time I actually turned all of this stuff off? Well, again, never. I always leave something on in some way or another. it’s only tiny power use after all, I think. If I’m going to turn a single PC off I have to turn the machine off, and the monitor, and the speakers and the printer. that’s too much like hard work. And then there is the router which stays on, and the cable modem which stays on.

How many people are there currently in my house? One

How many computers are running? two. Why, well one is for work and I’m remote controlling it from over here because it’s more comfortable.

So are both of these computers working really hard? Well of course there not, they never really work really hard.

That’s my example and I know it’s not unique. Drip, drip, drip, all of this energy flowing out of my house. All of that CO2 flowing into the environment.

I think that it’s about time we started to take these things seriously as an industry. Understanding the power requirements associated with software would be a really good start. One of the reasons the the third world isn’t taking our fat bloated software is because they can’t afford the power requirements, and why should they. If we can make powerful software work on low power hardware why don’t we? A little effort on our behalf would go a long way too, go on turn it off. Your time isn’t really that important, or that precious. If it was you wouldn’t be using that software, you’d be using a pen and paper.