No one knows what effect these chemicals have on us, on animals or the environment – especially not in this complicated mix, the “cocktail” of chemicals we are exposed to today. The Swedish film-maker Stefan Jarl recently made a documentary Submission – in defence of the unborn, featuring 23 professors from around the world. In the documentary Jarl seeks to find out just what problems these chemicals can cause, and the lingering effects they can have on unborn children. Have a look at a trailer for this interesting movie here  (the trailer is in English).

IT equipment contains plenty of different hazardous metals, chemicals and materials. Legislation has prohibited a few (the EU RoHS directive for instance) but there is so much more that needs to be done. Tonnes of E-waste are being burned in backyards in China or Africa, polluting both the environment and us – these chemicals are both persistent and bio-accumulative and travel far. One group of substances causing a lot of concerns is the halogenated, specifically the brominated and chlorinated. When the E-waste is burned under insufficient conditions – as a lot of the millions of tonnes of E-waste are today – hazardous dioxins, furans and other chemicals are released. These are then transferred to our food, water and finally, to us.

So what should we do? We can obviously not wait for our legislators to prohibit all potentially harmful substances. When it comes to IT equipment and the chemicals they contain there are several things we can do ourselves.

1. Buy eco labelled products! The TCO certification program prohibited brominated and chlorinated substances and materials and hazardous metals in the certified products 1995 – over 10 years before the European RoHS directive. And we have continuously added and toughened the requirements since then. 
2. Use your vacuum cleaner at home. A lot. It reduces the amount of brominated flame retardants, phthalates and other harmful substances flying around in your home.
3.  Have plenty of green plants at home. They also purify indoor air from harmful chemicals.
4. Leave your old electronics and all other hazardous waste for recycling – it reduces the amount of hazardous chemicals in the community in the long run.

But consider this – the developing world also represents a large growth market for PCs and other consumer electronics. What happens to all those products at the end of their use ? In a new study published this week in the American Chemical Society’s semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology, the authors claim that developing countries will produce at least twice as much electronic waste, or e-waste, as developed countries by 2030.

Go to the study here

The buzz word within the ICT industry has during the last 18^th month been Green IT and now it seems the trend it moving to include another buzz word; Sustainable IT. This trend is of course very positive.

In the discussions of Green IT so far there has been a lot talk about lower energy consumption. Low energy consumption is an important factor to reduce the CO2 emissions, but focusing only on lower energy consumption for a computer display can mean lower image quality.

It’s simple – a product with high performance and good usability has a longer life span and is less likely to enter the waste stream prematurely. This is another important environmental aspect that we unfortunately not see too much of in the discussion of Green IT or Sustainable IT.

No trade off between usability and environment
My point is that truly sustainable ICT products also must include the aspect of usability. A product that performs well and has low energy consumptions as well as low levels of hazardous substances is the best choice for the environment. Therefore there should not be any trade off between usability and environment aspects for ICT products!

What about products that don’t work if yoy try to be climate smart?
Last week I had a personal experience of usability vs. environmental aspects when I tried to be climate smart by switching off the printer at home. The printer is in standby mode 24 hours a day. Standby means less energy consumption but still it consumes energy, therefore I switched it off. The pleasure of a silent office and a good environmental conscience was on top when the printer was off. However there were no feelings of pleasure the next day when I was going to print a document. I had switched the printer on again, the control panel showed that the document was in the line for getting printed and that the printer was connected – but I did not get the document printed!  This doubly frustrating – firstly for not being able to get my documents printed and sceondly,  that I unnecessarily cause CO2 emissions because the printer doesn’t work if I switch it off properly.

Do you have similar experience of technology that makes it impossible to combine usability and environmental aspects? Let me know.

Make your comment here, or e-mail: birgitta.halvarsson@tco.se