01 Section 3 - Environmental Issues Flashcards
What are the environmental issues of technology?
-we use up natural resources to make devices
-when we use devices we use lots of energy
we throw away devices and create lots of e-waste
What natural resources do we use to make devices?
- plastics (casing an other parts), come from crude oil
- precious metals (gold, silver, copper, mercury, palladium, platinum and indium)
What are the environmental issues surrounding extracting raw materials?
- uses lots of energy
- creates pollution
- depletes scarce natural resources
How is most of the energy made that we use with technology?
- using non-renewable sources(coal,oil,gas)
- extraction of these natural resources and producing electricity from them creates a lot of greenhouse gases
What ways do devices use energy?
- power station energy for use
- require air conditioning which uses more energy and creates more pollution
- devices also waste a lot of energy
How is computers generating heat and therefore requiring cooling an environmental issue?
- powerful servers used by businesses and the Internet are very power hungry and require special air-conditioned rooms to keep them cool
- means using more energy and creating more pollution
How is devices wasting a lot of energy an environmental issue?
- servers normally only use a small amount of their processing power
- people often leave desktops, phones etc. idle
- these devices can use a lot of energy without even doing anything
What are ways to reduce the amount of energy wasted by devices?
- using virtual servers, so multiple virtual servers can be run on one physical server, so it can be used at full capacity
- most modern devices include sleep and hibernation modes to stop them from being left idle
- not leaving devices on standby
How is e-waste an environmental problem?
- the world creates 20-50 million tonnes of e-waste every year
- modern devices have a very short life (they break or people want an upgrade)
How are device manufacturers and retailers part of the problem with e-waste?
- they provide short warranties
- use marketing to convince people they need to upgrade
- have pricing policies, making it cheaper to replace than repair
What is being done to try and tackle the e-waste problem?
Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive was created
- have rules for disposing of e-waste safely
- promote reuse
- promote recycling of precious metals
What is the issues with where most e-waste is sent currently?
- to cut costs e-waste is sent to certain African countries where regulations are less strict
- most waste ends up in landfill and can be hazard (toxic chemicals can leak into groundwater and harm wildlife)