Environmental Impacts Flashcards

All 9 cards in this deck

What is e-waste?

Electronic waste — devices and components thrown away when they are replaced, often containing toxic materials that are hard to recycle.

Give one environmental impact of a phone company making cheaper phones that need replacing more often.

More e-waste, because phones are thrown away sooner, and more raw materials and energy are used to make the replacements.

Why can discarded e-waste be a hazard?

Much of it is sent abroad to countries with weaker regulations and dumped in landfill, where toxic substances can seep into soil and water, harming wildlife and people.

Why is the electricity used by computers an environmental problem?

Much of it is generated by burning non-renewable fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), which releases greenhouse gases.

Why do data centres use extra electricity on top of powering the servers?

Servers give off heat, so fans or air conditioning are needed to cool them.

Give two ways to reduce the electricity wasted by computers.

Any two of: use sleep or hibernate modes on idle devices; run several virtual servers on one physical server; switch off servers that aren't needed.

Give one environmental problem caused by extracting raw materials for devices.

Any one of: it uses a lot of energy; it causes pollution such as greenhouse gases; it uses up scarce, non-renewable resources.

Give two ways to reduce the amount of e-waste produced.

Any two of: repair devices and keep them for longer instead of upgrading; refurbish old devices so someone else can reuse them; recycle devices to recover their valuable metals; design products to last longer and be easy to repair.

Give one way digital technology can benefit the environment.

Any one of: video calls and working from home cut the need to travel, reducing emissions; digital documents and online forms reduce paper use; smart systems control heating and lighting to save energy.