When people talk about electronics and environmentalism, they tend to talk about planned obsolecence, rare earth metals, or pollution from manufacturing or recycling, which are all big problems of course, this is also something I’ve been wondering:
Most higher end electronics have metal casings made by CNC milling a solid piece of aluminum, magnesium alloy, or another metal. I think it was first made popular by Apple with their Macbooks. The first problem that I can think of is that a casing needs to be hollow, so you’re starting out with a solid piece of metal and carving it until most of it is gone, and even though the metal shavings can be recycled, both the CNC and the recycling process require energy, and the milling process also requires a constant stream of petroleum-based lubricant (though I’m not sure if you can just use something cleaner like water or if the oil can be reused).
Even if one uses electronics for as long as possible before upgrading (in which case most people want to future-proof by getting something higher end), do metal casings pose a sustainability problem? How does it compare to its main competitor, making casings out of plastic? Are there any other alternatives that are better than either? Maybe cast metal casings?
I’m thinking it’s most always the battery that gives up first and the lack of repairability in modern electronic devices renders phones and alike into paper weights. Landfill.
Fairphone works on fixing the repairability issue.
Metal, concrete and really also wood if utilized unwisely are all just plain destructive and mostly high energy materials. There is no such thing as environmentaly friendly metal or concrete.
Plastics may be a less destructive option for consumer electronics (satan vs. his cousin who may be worse). Reason being: if the case cracks you can tape it, no mountains had to be pulverized and molten and most likely something else gives before the case is in such a bad shape it renders the device unusable.
mm… banana leaf laptop.
My two kronor
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I guess the question in that case is if the energy required for recycled aluminum (which is starting to become more common thankfully) is outweighed by the effects of plastic, which includes microplastic contamination as you said, but also petroleum extraction and processing, which I’m not sure is better than aluminum mining.
Hemp plastic could be a solution though, and shows promise as structural plastic as opposed to just plastic bags and bottles. I wonder if the energy required is lower than recycled aluminum.
I say f*ck it, Cover the aluminum unibody of macbook in leather from an endangered species, and ship each one individually by a self driving car to every customer.
Reducing the environmental impact of billions of computers and cellphones, and the batteries that all go in to them…well I guess it’s a bit like being on a cruise ship that’s sinking, and someone runs up with one single bucket.
Enjoy the good times while they’re here.
I get what you’re saying, but even if capitalism is abolished and sustainability is placed on top priority, I don’t think we can really get rid of personal computers, so we need to find a way to make every aspect of them as sustainable as possible.
We will certainly need the computers to calculate the rate at which the ice packs are disappearing, it’s too big of a problem to model without computers.
Man, am I insane, or does this all feel like madness?
Another benefit of computers is working remotely, which as the COVID crisis has shown, is both very possible for most fields and leads to lower environmental impact due to fewer commuters and (I imagine) less buildings to heat/cool because people aren’t in offices.
Heck, with working remotely you can reduce a whole lot of computers that need to be manufacturered because you’re eliminating the need for a workstation at the office. Even if security concerns in some places mandate a separate work computer, not all of them do.
Debbie downer here - the large data center type internet we have these days are damn energy hungry compared to the spoken word at the office and in-house file sharing.
In Sweden most offices are on laptops - its quite rare to see straight workstations aside from the reception desk and such functions that doesn’t move. If there were workstations they are now obsolete due to Covid and remote work if they weren’t brought home with the employees. If this [company] decides to scrap the office partly or fully there are now a huge surplus of workstations and office furniture on its way to an uncertain future.
Yes there are upsides but I really take issue only looking at one side of the coin ;) The best options are always nothing, less, human power, no materials or production.
Humans don’t “need” phones, computers, automotive transportation. We are a survivalist species with little needs for nutrition and some cleanish water. To thrive and live a life of leisure, that’s another story and a story that will put a huge dent or perhaps end life on earth as we know it.
For the datacenter aspect, I think the solution might be decentralized/p2p communication. I feel like if done right, it can be lower than the environmental impact of commuting every day and then talking, especially since in a modern work environment you need messaging for in person too.
Good point on the furniture and workstations thing, but I feel like it would be a one-time thing and that the long term benefits would outweigh it, if handled responsibly and the equipment reused as much as possible.
As for “need”, it’s really hard to say what is needed. Mental health is also important when considering need, though this isn’t really an argument for computers since people can obviously be mentally healthy without them. However, as for the “we just need food and water” argument what we can say is that without a massive horrific genocide that kills off the majority of the world’s population, we won’t be able to go back to a tribal or prehistoric lifestyle even if the Earth instantly reverted to a prehistoric state, because there simply isn’t enough food for everyone without employing fairly advanced technology. At that point, we will need automation equipment and chemical, biological, structural and geotechnical engineering. With that, we’ll need education and research, long-distance communication, transport of workers, etc and basically end up at a similar level of technological development, maybe just without many personal “luxuries” as we know today.
Also, we need health care to survive. Without technology, we’d go back to the majority of infants dying and those deaths depressing the average lifespan to like 30 years, and to me, denying someone health technology when we have it is morally inexcusable. Again, if you’re going to keep using modern medicine, you need a society that’s technologically advanced, with people working in offices, factories and labs to pull it off, not to mention computers.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that the majority of environmental destruction is caused by greed of the rich in deliberately refusing to implement less profitable but more sustainable measures, and isn’t really the fault of the personal activities and “luxuries” enjoyed by the common citizen. If rich greed was taken out of the equation, I’m confident that things like transportation and computers can and will be pulled off sustainably and with even better user experience.
I think our best bet would be socialism (not “social democracy”, which is just capitalist but with more regulations, but actual Marxist socialism). Planned economy placing the environment on high priority, but obviously also prioritizing the health and happiness of the people, both mental and physical. Maybe that means giving up personal computers, maybe not, but tribalism and “returning to how humans lived originally”, which many environmentalists seem to talk about, isn’t going to work for the entire world if we want to keep our long lifespans and not do a horrible cull of the human race.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that the majority of environmental destruction is caused by greed of the rich in deliberately refusing to implement less profitable but more sustainable measures, and isn’t really the fault of the personal activities and “luxuries” enjoyed by the common citizen. If rich greed was taken out of the equation, I’m confident that things like transportation and computers can and will be pulled off sustainably and with even better user experience.
I get that the ultra rich are living life that are basically science fiction by now. But that can’t be the whole story as companies don’t do jack shit if there isn’t a buck in for them. I consider my self rich. I live an average westerner life - Me and the wife are payed enough to pay for a three room apartment, two kids and a save some. I work a stressful job eight hours a workday and sometimes an hour or so on sundays to make sure everything is set for monday morning. In-between kids and free time I have time to moan about issues on the internet.
I like any other salery-dependants enjoy inexpensive apples (and other fruit) - with covid cheap fruit picking immigrant labor ended and the price for apples have almost dubbled - “cUz $wEdEs neEd MoRe MoneY tO PiCk ÄpPlE”. We all hate Amazon, Apple, Nestlé and [Others] but we all enjoy cheap gods and services. It’s we who are the consumers and it’s disgusting. We soothe ourselves by buying into the green washing - telling ourselves “it’s the rich who are wasteful, I’m just filling my needs”. It’s bull.
It’s all of us that are the problem - rich, mid or semi-alive human beings.
I think our best bet would be socialism (not “social democracy”, which is just capitalist but with more regulations, but actual Marxist socialism). Planned economy placing the environment on high priority, but obviously also prioritizing the health and happiness of the people, both mental and physical. Maybe that means giving up personal computers, maybe not, but tribalism and “returning to how humans lived originally”, which many environmentalists seem to talk about, isn’t going to work for the entire world if we want to keep our long lifespans and not do a horrible cull of the human race.
I’d argue planned economies can also be extra great at destroying the planet and harvesting resources because it can do so in a structured central manner. From an idea to reality in a coordinated high efficient way. From swamps and trapper culture to space exploration in no time. I’ll flirt with Marx any day but I have a hard time seeing how it would solve our greedy materialistic ways as a culture - you can’t tell the up and coming economies of the world (India, China and such) to cut their greedy ways because we enlightened westerners have suddenly grown-up and realized our way is not the right way.
Casting is imprecise for that and cast metal is very brittle
Forging might work, but that still requires a lot of energy
