What do you associate with the plethora of high tech electronic gadgets currently available on the High Street? Different people will have different perceptions. Many will think that they're overpriced and a waste of money, others will think that they're cool and trendy. A lot of people will find them complicated and quite possible dread the thought of having to use the things. However, it's almost certain that few people, if any, would consider that new electronic devices could actually be good for the environment - but some of them can, depending upon how you use them.
One possible example would be digital photo frames. These have increased greatly in popularity over the last couple of years or so. Competition has now driven prices down to the point where you can buy a digital frame for around about the same price that you would have to pay for a traditional frame anyway. Digital frames have a number of perceived benefits, one of these is the fact that you can use a single frame to store and display hundreds, sometimes thousands, of photos.
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 avoid having photos printed out at a processing lab or if you just print out less on your computer printer you will wind up using fewer materials.
The current hot gadget - the e-book reader - is another good example. E-book readers have been available for a fair old time now, but their popularity absolutely rocketed during the course of 2009. It looks like they will become ever more common in the immediate future. At the moment, the Amazon Kindle reader is the market leader. Sony are in second place and have an established pedigree having been selling readers since 2006.
Every year, the U.S. book, magazine and newspaper sector requires 125 million trees to be felled. In addition to the lumber, large amounts of water, chemicals, dyes and energy are also needed to satisfy our reading habits. Further, because books are, of course, a physical product, they require to be shipped from the publishers to the book store - by road usually. It's also worth noting that the carbon footprint of the average book is doubled when the customer gets in their car, drives to the store, buys their book and then drives home again.
E-books don't need paper or ink to produce them. Neither are they a physical product - they can be delivered by internet download.
Of course, as both e-book readers and digital photo frames are themselves physical products, they do require both materials and energy for their production. They also need to be delivered to the retail outlet or direct to the end user. Even so, studies have shown that, even when the materials consumed are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that such devices can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to a certain extent, on how many books you read or how many photos you process each year).
One possible example would be digital photo frames. These have increased greatly in popularity over the last couple of years or so. Competition has now driven prices down to the point where you can buy a digital frame for around about the same price that you would have to pay for a traditional frame anyway. Digital frames have a number of perceived benefits, one of these is the fact that you can use a single frame to store and display hundreds, sometimes thousands, of photos.
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 avoid having photos printed out at a processing lab or if you just print out less on your computer printer you will wind up using fewer materials.
The current hot gadget - the e-book reader - is another good example. E-book readers have been available for a fair old time now, but their popularity absolutely rocketed during the course of 2009. It looks like they will become ever more common in the immediate future. At the moment, the Amazon Kindle reader is the market leader. Sony are in second place and have an established pedigree having been selling readers since 2006.
Every year, the U.S. book, magazine and newspaper sector requires 125 million trees to be felled. In addition to the lumber, large amounts of water, chemicals, dyes and energy are also needed to satisfy our reading habits. Further, because books are, of course, a physical product, they require to be shipped from the publishers to the book store - by road usually. It's also worth noting that the carbon footprint of the average book is doubled when the customer gets in their car, drives to the store, buys their book and then drives home again.
E-books don't need paper or ink to produce them. Neither are they a physical product - they can be delivered by internet download.
Of course, as both e-book readers and digital photo frames are themselves physical products, they do require both materials and energy for their production. They also need to be delivered to the retail outlet or direct to the end user. Even so, studies have shown that, even when the materials consumed are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that such devices can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to a certain extent, on how many books you read or how many photos you process each year).
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Discover the Amazon Kindle reader and find out how easy it is to save money by downloading free Kindle books - direct from Amazon's Kindle store!
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