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Tech and Ecology?


The last century technology has come an incredible long way.
New technology has changed our lives. We have TV, microwave food, mobile phones, computers, videogames, digital cameras and so on.
You probably know a lot about what you can do with it, and what the price is in the shop.
But have you ever asked yourself what most of this high technology is made of?

Let's have a look at how technology pollutes.
To produce high tech products a lot of energy is required and high toxic materials are being used. These poison the area's around the factories. Just look at the Silicon Valley in the USA, there are a lot of high tech factories and as many illegal toxic dumpsites.
This concern is the pollution being created at production.

Now it comes in use and will probably require a lot of electricity to be used.
Luckily here things have been improving and devices are using less power than they used to.

After some years the high tech product comes at the end of it's life. Unfortunately most of these products don't last long. Either because of treating them badly or just because of low quality hardware. Because manufacturers can earn more money when their products last only for a couple of years, and because of fashion, design choices aren't optimal for longevity in most products.
So now you are going to throw it away, and buy a new replacement. After this you'll be enjoying the new product, but let's focus on what happens with the old product!

The product will most probably end up on a junkpile. Now it should be recycled, for a start the metal cases are being recycled. But what about the toxic parts in mobile phones, computers, etc. ?
They don't get recycled in a decent way, they just lie there on the junkpile leaking toxics in our soil and water.

Much of our technological waste is sent to poor countries.
Computer components are often 'recycled' in the third world where workers without personal or environmental protection smash open monitors, burn plastics, scoop out used toner and melt down metals on open fires.
For example there are many projects where old computer equipment is sent to Africa as third world aid, but a recent investigation by the Basel Action Network showed that huge percentages of that equipment is broken. So in fact this "aid" is toxic waste!
We in the rich countries don't want all that toxic waste, so we try dumping as much possible of that toxic waste somewhere else. Paying the rich of those countries to let them dump it in the poor's backgarden.

I said we because everyone who buys high tech equipment is part of it. But it's clear that it are the leaders of companies are the ones who decide to make low quality products and make adds for millions of dollars to get the regular people to think they need it (and to buy the newest even if our old stuff still works!). On top of that many people think it doesn't matter what they do anyway.

We can't expect the autorities to fix this. Everyone should take up try to take their own responsibilities! Every bit counts.

My advice to you before buying a new electric product is, think about if you really need it!
And use non electric alternatives if possible. There's no reason to digitalize everything.


I'll continue on one specific high tech product: the computer.
A peculiarity of the computer is that it needs an operating system to function. The hardware and software evolves very quickly. Many people are led to believe that they need to buy a new computer at least every 5 years (if not less), even if the hardware still works.
And even if you just want to do the same things like 5 years ago you'll need new hardware to just run the new Windows operating system. Which is useless without added software applications.

But you don't have to buy new hardware to run up to date software!
There are other operating systems in the world. For example GNU/Linux, BSD and so many others.
GNU/Linux a choice which should work for most people. It is Free Software. More specific: it's licensed under the GPL.
Here's what the GPL means for you:
So Free Software is for people who like freedom. (The BSD license gives even a bit more freedom, but I'm not going to discuss that here) 
 
"In a world without walls and fences who needs Windows and Gates?".
Besides (or because of?) these advantages GNU/Linux tends to be very stable, secure and it doesn't require a fast computer if you don't use KDE or Gnome. So you can keep using your old hardware without a problem.

An example, I write this on a ten year old computer (p1 166mhz, 64mb ram). I can do all I need with it (internet, email, chatting, word processing, play mp3's...) at a decent speed and ease of use! I don't have to mind about viruses nor spyware (there are very few viruses and the chance to get one is almost nihil).
So as long as the hardware doesn't fail, this computer won't end up on the junkpiles. And it saves me a lot of money.
By the way, old computers generally use less electricity than new computers. And don't run as hot (this was written in 2004).

Even if it's correct that TFT's use less energy then CRT monitors (CRT's are also full of lead), it's not better for nature to replace your working CRT with a TFT. Because you shouldn't neglect the big amount of energy needed to build the new TFT!
But if you need to buy a new monitor (and a second hand is no option) you should go for a TFT.
Some environmentalists also advice buying laptops instead of desktop computers. They use less energy and take up less space.
But besides that producing laptops requires more energy, it (and mobile phones too) also requires the mineral coltan which mostly comes from Congo (80% of coltan in the world). Where there's a war exactly for it's rich resources. Coltan causes indirectly a lot of deaths over there.
Don't understand me wrong, there is just no big point in saying laptops are better for environment.
You could find a laptop with coltan not coming from Africa, but I haven't found a company which declared not using coltan from Africa yet.

There are other interesting computer systems though, smaller systems using low power processors like the ARM.
But they have much less performance then normal computers. Though they are very usable with GNU/Linux and lightweight applications.
If there ever are no second hand computers left I'd buy such a computer (or I could just buy no computer ofcourse).

At the end it just comes to using your computer to the end of it's life, and I hope GNU/Linux (or any other free operating system) will help you keep enjoying your aging computer!

The computer and the internet have changed a lot for information distribution around the world. I learned a lot from information on the internet.
Yet I don't think the computer is a necessary tool, but I've learned a lot about it in my life and on this website I'm passing some information on. I hope people will be able to keep using their old computers much longer, to lower the technological waste.
Maybe you know a friend who could help you set up GNU/Linux.
But if you don't, there are also many linux meetings or groups. Maybe there is one in your neighborhood and they could help you.
There is also a lot of good documentation and helpful people on irc channels on the internet.

I have some useful information about GNU/Linux Debian on this site. But my info isn't enough and quite rough for newbies (I think!). So you'll find many links to good documentation.

There is short information on installing and configuring GNU/Linux Debian.
And there is also a list of quality lightweight applications you can try.

There are also many other things to do in relation to ecology. Like shutting down the computer when you're not using it, planning your computer use so you only do what you need to, printing on both sides of paper, using CDRW's so you can reuse them, and so on.

Last but not least, there is good information about ecology and computers in the linux ecology howto.
Check out the links to pages related to using old computers, the social costs of electronics and the free software movement in links.html.
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