Environmental Issues

Question 1

What are environmental issues?

Answer 1

• Concern the natural world and the negative effects of producing, using and discarding computer systems and devices.

Question 2

Energy and Material Consumption:

Answer 2

• Thousands of new devices are manufactured every day.
• Plastics, metals, rare elements and electrical power are used to assemble and run the devices.
• Web servers and data centres must be powered all day, using lots of energy.

Question 3

Pollution and Waste:

Answer 3

• Generating electricity to power computers creates pollution.
• An average PC could require up to 50% more energy per year than a fridge.
• Computers are difficult to recycle.
• Discarded components can lead to land, water and air pollution due to harmful materials like lead and mercury leaking into the environment.
• People should reuse and recycle their devices.