Make your PC green

It takes 1,500 kilogrammes of water to manufacture one personal computer, an environmental consultant told university students in Dubai at a conference on green issues last week.

The 11th Footprints Conference organised by Dubai-based students at the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC) in India aimed to inform students about their participation in ecological sustainability for the future.

Green IT

Gaurav Bhatia, green IT consultant at Circle Engineering, said studies show that in 2005 the world was already consuming 1.2 times what it can produce. "Our ecological footprint here in the UAE is nine times that of what the world can produce, making it the highest in this part of the world."

He said green information technology (IT) is important as greenhouse gas emissions from the IT industry currently equal those of the aviation industry. "It contributes to 2.5 per cent of global emissions," said Bhatia.

The truth about manufacturing

Estimated at a worth of $600 billion (Dh2,200 billion), the green IT industry, Bhatia said, is booming because of the current mass waste generated by the industry. "The manufacturing phase of a personal computer accounts for 80 per cent of the overall total energy consumption in the industry," he said.

To produce a 2kg laptop, 50kg of metal is discarded as toxic electronic waste. More than 22kg of chemicals are used to make one personal computer, he added.

He said the implementation of green IT lies with corporate IT managers who can easily find ways to reduce emissions if they only looked hard enough.

"An environmental agency I joined was initially using 70 servers," said Bhatia. "We reduced them to seven."

1,500kg of water to manufacture one personal computer

22kg of chemicals to manufacture one personal computer

50kg of metal discarded as toxic electronic waste for a laptop weighing 2kg