Eco Friendly Gadgets
What do you think about when you consider the latest high technology gadgets? It will vary from person to person. Some may think that they’re trendy. Others might feel that they cost way too much. Some almost certainly feel that they’re confusing and can be difficult to operate. It very much depends on your own individual viewpoint. However, it’s probably a fair bet to say that you almost certainly don’t associate the latest “must have” electronic gadget with doing your bit for the environment – but electronic devices can, in the right circumstances, be environmentally friendly.
Digital photo frames for example have become very popular over the last two or three years. As a result of fierce competition, prices have reduced considerably and you can now pick up perfectly serviceable digital frames for more or less the same price that you might expect to pay for a traditional photo frame. There are a variety of perceived benefits associated with digital frames, one of these is their capability of displaying hundreds of different photographs using a single frame.
A lot will depend upon how many photographs you take in an average year, but if you are in the habit of getting a bit snap happy then using a digital frame to display your photo collection could have a positive environmental impact. Whether you remove the need to have hard copies of photos developed at a processing lab or if you just print out less using your computer, you will wind up consuming fewer materials.
Another good, and very topical, example is the current trendy gadget – the e-book reader. E-book readers have actually been available for quite some time, but they really caught the public’s imagination in 2009 and now seem poised to increase sales even further in 2010. The Kindle reader is currently the most popular by a long way and Sony have also established a good market presence.
125 million trees are cut down every year to provide the paper required to supply the U.S. book, magazine and newspaper industry sector. Huge amounts of water, energy and a whole host of chemicals are also consumed to feed the nation’s reading habit. What’s more, books being a physical product require to be delivered from the publisher’s warehouse to the book store – typically using road transportation. The fuel used by customers who make a car trip to and from the store is also a factor in determining the final carbon footprint of a standard book.
Of course, e-books do not consume large quantities of paper, ink etc. in their production. Also, as they are not a physical product, they can be delivered over the internet rather than using the road transport network.
Needless to say, both digital photo frames and e-book readers, being physical products themselves, do consume materials in their production. They also need to be delivered to the retail outlet or direct to the end user. Nevertheless, studies have shown that, even when these materials are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that devices of this type can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to some extent, on the number of books you read or how many photos you usually print each year).
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