12
votes
Accepted
Is it more environmentally friendly to use laptops or desktop PCs?
"To compare purely the electricity usage ... Desktops are clearly worse for the environment in this respect." — That certainly used to be the case, and still often is, but only because people buy/...
- 2,889
6
votes
Accepted
How to get the most out of computer hardware before it becomes obsolete?
There are some differences began the situation for laptops and desktops, as well as some common solutions. Desktop machines obviously use more resources in manufacturing, and may use more electricity, ...
- 2,126
6
votes
What can I do as a developer for the environment?
Develop for old hardware
You could develop for old hardware or in general develop software that enables
durable hardware. For example some developers provide slick Linux distributions like WattOS, ...
- 393
5
votes
Environmental impact of toner versus ink cartridges?
The question seems to be asking only about the environmental impact of the cartridges, so I probably shouldn't talk about how a laser printers use 100 times more power while they are printing, but ...
- 570
5
votes
How do I find an eco-friendly laptop?
Always try to buy hardware, that is easy to repair and upgrade. This will save you from throwing it away to buy another one, when it breaks, starts to overheat due to dust in the fan or needs more ...
- 161
5
votes
Accepted
What's the most environmentally friendly micro USB charging cable...if any?
Just buy a used USB cable. You can go to a computer recycler and they will have thousands.
- 384
4
votes
Environmental impact of toner versus ink cartridges?
Inkjets are the Hummer of printers
If you care about the environment, give that inkjet printer to the next person you can find for whom your gift/sale will prevent them from buying a new inkjet.
...
3
votes
Is it more environmentally friendly to use laptops or desktop PCs?
To add some numbers to the discussion, I found
a white paper from Fujitsu about a desktop (2018)
production energy usage: 6.8 GJ or 450 kg CO2 equivalent
use phase energy usage: 9.2 GJ or 30 - 500 ...
- 301
3
votes
How can I start a recycle center for electronic goods
First of all, I think it's great that you are trying to do something about all the electronic waste in rural areas in India. E-waste is not easy to recycle because you need knowledge what usable ...
- 14.6k
3
votes
What's the carbon footprint of stackoverflow?
Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation:
This page describes the architecture of the Stack Exchange network. It consists of:
9 web servers
4 sql servers
2 redis servers
3 tag servers
3 ...
- 14.6k
3
votes
How do I find an eco-friendly laptop?
There are plenty of sites selling reconditioned laptops or second hand laptops. Some companies upgrade regularly and this releases perfectly serviceable computers to the public. These surely have ...
- 708
3
votes
How do I find an eco-friendly laptop?
I thought a new development would be worth mentioning: CrowdSupply hosts a successful crowd-funding campaign for the EOMA68 line of computing devices. EOMA68 is a standard, and the computing devices ...
- 3,322
3
votes
What's the most sustainable way of hosting a domain?
The most sustainable hosting choice would use:
100% renewable energy
energy-efficient servers
properly recycle all hardware at the end of their lifespan
Hosting at home
You could consider hosting ...
- 14.6k
2
votes
Is Linux more sustainable than Windows?
Windows 7 x64 is sustainable for the long forseable future and needs no more updates.
Only the browsers and other apps need updates.
The extended release Win 7 updates just disables Remote Desktop ...
2
votes
Is Linux more sustainable than Windows?
Your question itself is quite unspecified (although interesting):
Are we talking home-computing?
Are we talking server?
Are we focusing on power consumption?
Are we focusing on usage of older ...
- 157
2
votes
Accepted
The sustainability of Spotify
Summary: storing music locally most likely uses a bit less energy than streaming music, but it depends on things like if you replay the same song multiple times and if the music streaming service ...
- 14.6k
2
votes
What can I do as a developer for the environment?
There are many different things you can do to get active for your environment. Imho developers are even more important, as they create software that will consume energy at the design, development and ...
- 225
2
votes
What is the Degrowth perspective on ad blocking and online advertising?
If you use services which are paid for by someone else, through advertising or because they like the views that the editor is pushing, then you forfeit an element of control and knowledge about ...
- 1,021
1
vote
Do SSDs have a lower environmental impact compared to HDDs?
The environmental impact potentials were evaluated based on the metal contents and masses of the drives and environmental impact characterization factors used in life cycle impact assessments.
The ...
1
vote
How to get the most out of computer hardware before it becomes obsolete?
Basically, begin with a computer that has the number of processing cores of current premium computer offerings. Then choose an operating system that is a current offering on premium computers. ...
- 302
1
vote
Is it more environmentally friendly to use laptops or desktop PCs?
Since a few years have passed, I think my original question has a better answer: mini PCs are better than either laptops or desktops. These are as low-power as laptops, or lower, while avoiding the ...
- 83
1
vote
Is it more environmentally friendly to use laptops or desktop PCs?
Desktops hands down:
Materials used
Aside from form factor, almost all of the components of a laptop could be plugged into a desktop and function as is. With that in mind however, laptop components ...
- 11
1
vote
Life-cycle assessment of software products?
Easy.
If the software product is used by few, the environmental impact comes from your development and testing machines. Use low-power machines, as few as them as possible. Don't over-invest into ...
- 5,249
1
vote
What's the most environmentally friendly micro USB charging cable...if any?
You can always learn to solder, and make your own cables. By re-using electronic scrap you'll prevent the need for new cables. Then it can be as long as you need.
- 375
1
vote
How much power does a computer monitor left switched on use?
Nowadays manufacturers all provide roughly the same numbers when it comes to power consumption of their monitors in "stand-by", "active off", "power saving mode" or whatever they call it. It's below 0....
- 14.6k
1
vote
What's the most sustainable way of hosting a domain?
You could ask the service providers for the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) score of the Data Centre the services run out of. Although it's not a perfect measurement it widespread enough that the ...
- 11
1
vote
What's the most sustainable way of hosting a domain?
I would not recommended RECS (Renewable Energy certificates). Even though they are endorsed by the USEPA and several other NGOS, it's been empirically proven to have no impact on the additionality of ...
- 11
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible