If you followed my advice from last week, you’ve managed to get yourself a sweet new laptop that’s also easy on mother Earth. But choosing a socially responsible computer is just the beginning. Computers (and the people that sit in front of them) are notorious for binging on a high carbon diet of energy, paper and printer toner. So today I’ll cover ways you can curb your computer’s gluttony or as I like to say, reduce your carbon mouseprint.
Okay, let’s start with energy. We’ve all been guilty of leaving our computer on when we’re not using it. The good news is that most computers and their peripherals come pre-set to save energy by going into “sleep” mode after a period of inactivity. The bad news is that this tricks us into thinking they’re off, when in fact they’re still sucking energy.
You’ll save more energy and reduce carbon emissions if you shut down your computer and peripherals when they’re not in use. However, even when off, your computer can sap a “phantom load” of energy. The average American home “leaks” about 5% of its electricity powering electronics when they’re turned off (1). To eliminate any power leaks, plug your computer into a power strip and turn off the power strip’s main switch.
Worried that turning your computer on and off so often might do damage? Forget it. Don’t believe the myths that you’ll “wear out” your computer. New computers are designed to handle more than 100 years' worth of on/off cycles (2).
You may be thinking you’ll never remember to turn off that power strip. Fortunately, there’s Smart Strip. It’s not your ordinary power strip. Smart Strip detects when you’ve shutdown your computer and automatically turns off any other peripherals you have connected – like printers, monitors, speakers and external hard drives. And by completely cutting power to those peripherals it also eliminates any phantom loads.
Hopefully I’ve sold you on shutting down. But if you’re like me, you’ve got half baked spreadsheets, blogs and other works in progress open on your computer, so having to find them all again after a restart is not always convenient.
Under these circumstances, it’s important to make sure you’ve optimized your computer’s sleep mode. Don’t settle for the default power settings on your machine. Instead, shorten the period of activity as much as you can – the shorter the period, the more energy you’ll save and thus the smaller your carbon mouseprint. (In Windows XP go into Control Panels – Power Options – Power Schemes).
If you have a PC, you may have noticed it sometimes behaves like a child that refuses to go to sleep when it’s bedtime. That’s because Windows can mistake background system tasks for someone tapping away at the keyboard. Hours of energy can be wasted because of this glitch.
For an easy and foolproof way to make sure your computer goes to sleep when it should, try CO2 Saver. This free software utility for Windows XP and Vista not only provides and easy way to mange your power settings, it also includes an option to force your machine to sleep if for some reason Windows gets confused (3). It also the amount of CO2 you've saved by improving your power management. The corporate version even lets you know how much CO2 your organization has saved.
Energy savings may be the most obvious way to reduce your carbon mouseprint, but paper use is not far behind. Despite the promises of the paperless office, most of us are responsible for more felled trees than we’d like to be. The average U.S. office worker prints 10,000 pages per year – that is literally killing a tree (4).
I feel especially guilty when I see a sheet of paper I’ve printed with only a few lines on it – usually a legal disclaimer or signature line at the end of an email. Thankfully, Portland’s very own Hayden Hamilton has developed, GreenPrint, a $35 software utility that finds and removes wasted sheets of paper before printing. It even tracks the pages, money, trees and CO2 you’ve saved!
Speaking of printing, I often see people printing at the highest quality option or in color when they really don’t need to (do you really need those driving directions in color?). Instead, set your printer defaults to draft quality and black and white. By reducing the number of toner cartridges you use, you’ll not only save money, you’ll also reduce the impact on natural resources needed to produce new cartridges – and that translates into real CO2 savings.
Finally, when you eventually run out of toner, make sure that empty cartridge gets recycled. Many new toner cartridges come with postage paid envelopes in which to return the empty cartridge you’re replacing. There are also 3rd parties that recycle empty cartridges. Some, like AAA Environmental, offer fund raising programs that pay organizations for each cartridge they return.
It’s easy to lose sight of how your computer’s energy use, paper and toner cartridges can add to significant to CO2 emissions. But new tools and simple habits can make it just as easy to curb your computer’s high carbon binges. Follow the advice above and you’ll not only reduce your carbon mouseprint, you’ll be doing your part to live technically green.
Got an opinion? Continue the conversation - post comments below or email Will at Will.Villota.blogger@ecometro.com.
Sources:
1. University of Oregon
2. Ideal Bite, October 10, 2006
3. “Putting Energy Hogs in the Home on a Strict Low-Power Diet” Larry Magid, The New York Times
4. GreenPrint.com
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Editor's Note on further reading:
Home Office Recycled Products, and
EcoMetro Active: Phantom Power, both from the 2008 Chinook Book.