Digital Waste and Why It’s a Problem

1. The Invisible Pollution:

Sometimes we miss the bigger picture. During the conversation about climate change, we often overlook digital carbon. I am not talking about the tech industry. I am talking about the usage like you are currently using a mobile phone, or reading this on a laptop.

In this article, we simply go through digital waste and why it’s a problem. This article tell you how you can help? And your help’s impact.

What is Digital Waste?

There is an app on your mobile that you don’t use. You send thank-you emails to bigger creators instead of cold emails. They are stored in data centers. These data centers eat electricity and water like a necessary evil. If you are interested Abdul Jabbar(one of author’s) write AI’s thirst for water. If I simplify for you I can say data centers need electricity to run and water to cool off the heat. The need for electricity and water costs us not only space. But also cost us both our future generation environment and our environment.

Why it’s a problem:

There are three reasons why it’s a problem. We can’t see it. As we buy and throw away plastic bags. We drive a car and don’t maintain it. As we gas our kitchen and see it. We can’t see the digital waste. We act on our emotions like. Oh! It’s like a life-changing email. I have to thank you. But wait a sec. Here is a little story of mine.  I subscribe to Ali Abdaal(productivity teacher). You can sign up for the email for free advice on productivity. One of his emails is so good. I thank him in the reply section, and also wish to work with him in the future. It costs me nothing. But to the environment, it costs 0.3 to 4 grams of CO2. It’s an overreaction.No,That’s the problem. One of my favourite things I learn from the environment it needs different solutions to do it. It means every person counts. As 1 year of Thank You email in the UK costs 16,000 tons Carbon . So, whenever you feel like sending a Thank-you email, pause it reach out to the other person, or just a waste.

So, as we know, by the first cause it’s not seen you produce 81,000 car trips of 1 km by just sending a Thank You Email. I am not saying don’t send thank-you email and feel proud about it, I am saying count it. It’s important for your personal growth as well.

Problem of infinity

We can’t see it, so we can assume it’s infinite. As we think it’s clean so nothing matters. If you send an email to all, it does not count. Or you can just store photos, screenshots, and apps without even needing them. However, all these cost us a ton of carbon. Stanford University estimates that 100GB of data costs 200kg of carbon. But you feel a sigh as it doesn’t bother youn’t have this much storage. But the reality is in today’s world, A single window laptop backup is 200GB. Ya! Amazing and environmentally dangerous. So, mobile data backup costs 10’s of gigabytes each. Here is another fact about this. According to Garry McGovern, the author of World Wide Waste, 90% data is never accessed once stored.

Delete THE DATA

Before jumping onto the third reason. Simply, clean up your mobile data, and delete emails and apps you never read or use. It save us 10KG of carbon emission of every year. You delete your data, and you save the environment.

Alpha B 

Now jumping on to the third reason, I have another little story for you There is small world that exists in the Andromeda galaxy. 

There is a little planet called Alpha B. They are very advanced in technology 100 years advanced from us if we don’t indulge into wars and anything else. The only problem is pollution. They send their waste into space. But it creates the illusion of limitlessness and not knowing. And when they tried to reach other planets, it just didn’t make sense. They have the space like a garbage bucket. Because they don’t take action and are not interested in learning what happened in space?. Now they are stuck on their home planet.

And wait for the asteroids or space junk to come to hit the planet. They tried to stop it, but it doesn’t matter because you have to do it again and again and again. It costs all the energy and minerals on planet Alpha B. Now their planet weighs less as in the process they cut out half the planet. They have super coal, but it can’t last long. Now their illusion of having only living beings in the universe makes them hopeless. This has led to civil wars and the destruction of whole civilizations.

Power Consumption

The third problem is power consumption. These data centers use power and electricity. How much for the sake of comparison word data centers consume 1 to 2% of all electricity worldwide. About 68% data is dark data(data that is never accessed again by the user). It produce 6.8 million tons of CO2 per year. It is equivalent to the total emission of 80 countries. So, your effort to delete your unused data not only saves the environment but also helps in your personal growth. Compared to a car’s travel. It means driving 3.7 million cars for 1 year. So, delete your unused data and save the planet. By helping to save energy and civilization.