Slashdot Mirror
Environmental Costs of Computer Use?
arhines asks: "I'm working on a little research project to figure out what the environmental cost of heavy technological reliance is, and want any suggestions Slashdot has for factors to consider. My school has started requiring students to own and use laptops in all of their classes, under the pretext of saving paper. Having read about the problems with computer recycling on Slashdot, I've become suspicious of the true effect of having several hundred computers thrown out each year. What statistics should I focus on, and are there any definitive studies on the topic you could point me to?"
My experience has been that even if a paper is submitted to a teacher or professor (I played this game five years ago in high school), the teacher immediately prints it and pulls out a red pen rather than grading it electronically.
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It's especially cute that the department at my college that seems the least inclined to grade and return my papers electronically rather than printing them out is the environmental studies department. The most inclined is the Math dept., where some professors won't even accept hardcopies anymore.
Plus, using electronic sources leads to paper wastage, too. A textbook is used over and over. If you hand students an electronic source, many of them will print it out, then throw it away. And again next year. And again. And again. And again.
And then there's all of the cute pictures people find on the 'net and print out. .