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?"

Comments

Re:Saving paper

[wmspringer]

If anything, computers can lead to MORE paper use.

I've had several classes where the professor made thier powerpoint slides available online, and some people would go and print out the entire presentation before class; they eventually ended up changing the system so you had to be logged in to print and putting a cap on how much each person could print per semester.

How to save paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. If you want to save paper, force all students to use 9 pin dot matrix printers. That way .. the noise and time consumption of printing ANYTHING will make them think twice about frivously printing unnecessary crap. Not like laser printers where it takes only seconds and is silent.

Re:Saving paper

[Anonymous Coward]

The school he is referring to is not a college or university. It appears to be a secondary school. How useful would it be for a 7th grader to have a laptop for all their work? Also, it seems like it would be hard to keep them from playing games in class.

Re:Saving paper

[Tackhead]

> Saving paper is a pretty bad reason to give college kids laptops. There are good reasons, but saving paper isn't one of them.

If I'm in a room where someone's talking and scribbling equations on a blackboard, I can do a much better job of recording what's important with pencil and paper than I could ever fantasize about punching into a laptop, and I'm a touch typist.

I've played with everything from Word or TeX, and I don't know any way of entering a differential equation or a matrix into a computer that's faster than just scribbling it down with a layer of graphite on a dead tree. (Besides, how the hell could I hear the professor with all the damn click-clicking of 100 keyboards? :-)

I believe in using the best tool for the job. Laptops are a good tool for many applications, but taking notes in class ain't one of them.

Re:Saving paper

[(54)T-Dub]

It is for this reason that I have never used a laptop in school.
Seems to me that they should require students to use recycled paper instead. Of course I feel that everybody should use recycled paper. We've taught people to recycle, now we need to teach them to purchase the damn products. Otherwise the recycled paper won't be cheaper than normal paper until tree's are so rare that they cost more to chop down.