From old screenshots to junk emails and texts received a year ago, digital clutter is ever present in our lives—and easy to ignore.
But every sent message, recorded video, and voice note has an energy impact. Technology use relies on the transfer of data from our devices to servers stored in data centers. Those servers require electricity—and environmental resources including water.
Our forgotten digital clutter is stored in the cloud, which, abstract as it sounds, is realized in the form of servers in data centers that use air conditioning and water to keep cool. And to make sure we can access whatever we want, whenever we want, the systems are overly redundant to prevent outages. Storing those blurry photos and junk email—for not just you, but everybody—indefinitely, requires resources.
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Why you should do it
The amount of energy required to store 1 terabyte of data (equivalent to the amount of storage of roughly four 256-gigabyte laptops) on the cloud ranges from 40 kWh to 300 kWh annually, based on estimates over the past couple years. For context, using just 60 kWh is equivalent to charging your smartphone every single night for over six years.
Meanwhile, large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day—the same daily use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
It’s because of these environmental impacts that the U.K. government last summer, in the middle of a drought, asked people to take some time to delete their unwanted photos, outdated screenshots, and unopened junk emails, to help ease the burden on data centers—and thus the environment.
How to do it
Finding bite-sized moments, like dedicating your Monday commute to deleting old photos or tacking on an inbox clean up after your regularly scheduled chores, can help you get in the flow of action. You can also try giving yourself five minutes each day to see what you can accomplish.
And making a regular habit of the practice—like scheduling a time once a month to digitally declutter—can help the task feel less daunting with time.
The bigger picture
It’s hard to avoid digital tasks. Thinking about your online carbon footprint can feel overhwelming—and it’s hard to get a clear sense of exactly what that footprint looks like. The estimates of just how much carbon dioxide is emitted can vary by task. Sending and receiving an email, for example, can use anywhere from 0.03g and 26g of carbon depending on the length and number of recipients, according Mike Berners-Lee, author of How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. The book was released in 2020, and it’s worth noting that as technology has improved since then, so too has the efficiency of our digital tasks. At the end of the day, that number is “infinitesimal,” says Berners-Lee.
When it comes to our tech use, the biggest carbon impact actually comes from manufacturing these products.
“A bigger part is the embodied carbon in the manufacturer of the [product] that we’re using at our end, which actually is a bigger deal than the energy that our computer or our smartphone will use throughout its lifetime,” he notes.
That’s why it’s important to be intentional when it comes to buying new things—and keep them in your life as long as possible.
“Buy fewer physical products, make them last,” recommends Berners-Lee. And when you are in the market for a product, consider where you can get it from—local buy nothing groups, secondhand stores, or family and friends might have brand new or gently used versions that fit what you’re looking for. “Buy second hand if you can,”says Berners-Lee, “and try to declutter and take junk out of your life.”
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