Toxins According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans throw out more than 2 million tons of consumer electronics annually, making electronic waste (also known as e-waste) one of the fastest growing components of the municipal waste stream. When these electronics break down, they release mercury and other toxins. E-waste is a concern because of the impact of its toxicity and carcinogenicity when components are not properly disposed of. Toxic substances can include: • Lead • Mercury • Cadmium • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

A typical computer monitor may contain more than 6 percent lead by weight, much of which is in the lead glass of the cathode ray tube (CRT). Components such as capacitors, transformers, and PVC insulated wires that were manufactured before 1977 contain dangerous amounts of PCBs. A major portion of this change is that e-waste is being handled separately from conventional garbage and recycling processes. Far more computers are being reused and refurbished than they were at the turn of the century.

There are lots of benefits to reusing equipment: There is less demand for new products and their use of raw materials. Less water and electricity is used when reuse lowers the need for the production of new products. Less packaging is used. Redeployed technology is available to more sectors of society, because computers and other components are often more affordable. Less toxins are going into landfills.

This figure shows where various toxins can be found on your desktop computer—or the thousands of desktops in a large organization. 1. Lead in the cathode ray tube and solder 2. Arsenic in older cathode ray tubes 3. Antimony trioxide used as flame retardant 4. Polybrominated flame retardants in plastic casings, cables, and circuit boards 5. Selenium used as a power supply rectifier in circuit boards 6. Cadmium in circuit boards and semiconductors 7. Chromium used as corrosion protection in steel 8. Cobalt in steel for structure and magnetism 9. Mercury in switches and the housing

Power Consumption All your desktop PCs, all your servers, all your switches, and so forth use electricity to run. Also, a fair amount of electricity is used to cool your electronics. This electricity not only costs you money to buy from the electrical utility, but the utility has to generate the electricity, quite often by using fossil fuels, which generate more greenhouse gas emissions. However, according to research from Intel, 80 percent of businesses have never conducted an energy audit and only 29 percent of businesses are investing in energy-efficient PCs—Intel, 2006. Those companies are losing money because they don’t know just what they’re spending and how they can reduce those costs.

Solutions Conserving power can be realized via technologies such as virtualizing servers. That is, removing the physical server from service and offloading its duties onto another machine. Such a practice saves an organization—per machine—approximately $560 annually in electricity costs. If you have less equipment, you use less electricity and you have less impact on the planet. There are two ways you can rely less on fossil fuel–based sources of electricity: • Virtualization :- Virtualization takes multiple physical servers out of operation and offloads their duties onto a single machine. Specialized software makes it possible to run dozens of servers on one physical machine, thus reducing the amount of power consumed. • Generate your own power:- Many companies are striving to be completely carbon neutral. One way you can cut your electrical bill and make a move toward carbon neutrality is to generate your own power. This is typically done using solar cells or wind turbines. Also, if you generate more power than you need, you can sell it back to your electrical utility.

Heat The energy you consume to cool that equipment is also an issue. The more equipment you have (and the less efficient it is), the more heat it generates and the more electricity you use to cool that equipment. Consider the Swiss datacenter owned by CIB-Services AG. In 2008, the Uitikon, Switzerland company started using the hot air removed from its datacenter to heat the nearby public swimming pool. What would normally be vented into the atmosphere, and thus wasted, is being utilized for a productive purpose.

Equipment Disposal The issues go beyond power consumption. Computers and other devices are routinely discarded once they become obsolete. 133,000 PCs are discarded by U.S. homes and businesses each day. In 1998 alone, more than 20 million PCs became obsolete in the U.S., but fewer than 11 percent of them were recycled Electronic waste is a big problem. It represents 2 percent of American landfills, but it accounts for 70 percent of overall toxic waste, as shown next. Much of the e-waste is shipped overseas to China, India, Nigeria, and other places.

The Business of Recycling Recycling e-waste is complicated. First, the metals and plastics must be separated, and then the circuit boards are shredded to separate the aluminum, iron, and copper from the valuable precious metals, such as silver.

The Recycling Process E-waste processing generally involves first dismantling the equipment into these different components: • Metal frames • Power supplies • Circuit boards • Plastics

The European Union Europe has taken the lead in the world of e-waste handling. In the 1990s, some European countries banned the disposal of e-waste to landfills. The result of this was a new industry on the continent—e-waste processing. The United States some states have banned cathode ray tubes (CRTs) from landfills because of fear that their heavy metals would leach into the groundwater.

Company’s Carbon Footprint The term carbon footprint is thrown around a lot in green circles. Although we have a general idea of its meaning—one’s impact on the planet—there’s no standard definition. In some cases, it might refer just to carbon dioxide output; in other cases it means greenhouse gas emissions. In other organizations, carbon footprint might mean that everything is tallied—sourcing materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, disposal, and so forth. http://www.carbonfootprint.com/

The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2, depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emitted some quantities of CO2.

Measuring Four major steps are used to measure your carbon footprint: • Define what is included in your carbon footprint. • Set your baseline. • Track, calculate, and analyze your footprint. • Report your results to stakeholders.

Define Your Borders

Based on the protocols, companies must decide how to account for both direct and indirect emissions: • Direct emissions These are from sources that your company owns or controls, such as factory smokestacks, vents, and company vehicles. • Indirect emissions These are generated as a result of your company’s activities, but occur in sources owned by someone else. For example, if you contract work out or your employees travel, those emissions are generated by a third party, but because of you.

Why do you care about your carbon footprint? Although measuring your carbon footprint is a good way to measure your overall progress toward becoming green, it isn’t just for bragging rights or to keep in the corner of the company newsletter to let everyone know how well you’re doing. A good emissions inventory can help with numerous business goals, including the following: • Helping your company improve its efficiencies • Reducing costs • Getting public recognition for taking action to reduce or eliminate your climate impacts

Hardware: The biggest way you can reduce your impact on the environment and the amount of money you’re paying for hardware is to simply buy less equipment. Power: The more power you use, the more money you spend. Next, consider the issue on an environmental level. The more power you use, the more fossil fuels the local electrical utility has to burn, thus causing more greenhouse gases to be generated. Desktops: An average desktop PC requires 85 watts just to idle, even with the monitor off.

Datacenters: Networked computers are the backbone of business, but the growth in servers and network infrastructure has caused a sharp spike in the electrical usage in the datacenter. Consumption: Higher energy-efficient power supplies can lower your datacenter’s electrical bill dramatically