Besides all of the common things that you can do to help the environment like recycle plastic and paper goods, there are tons of other things you can do using your computer to help the environment. Here’s our list of the top 10 ways you use use your computer to make a difference!
- Shop Online - Instead of driving your car miles to your favorite store to buy something, try buying it online.
- Pay bills Online - If you can, opt out of receiving a paper bill in the mail and just pay the bill online.
- Read the Daily Paper Online - Many newspapers post the entire newspaper online. Instead of getting the paper delivered to your door each morning, just get on your computer to read the paper.
- Email! - This is almost too obvious. Instead of sending letters to friends and family. Another idea is to send electronic Christmas cards instead of mailing them.
- Ditch the phonebook - Don’t get a phone book and instead use one of the many online phonebook services. Remember, by simply typing a first and last name along with the city and state in a Google search, you can get the phone number and address of the person. If you’d like a phone number for a business, simply type the name of the business along with the city and state.
- Get recipes online - Instead of buying a cookbook, visit a site dedicated to recipes like Chow.com (our review here), Cooks.com, or simply do a search for “Recipes.”
- Download software - Legally of course! Some software can be purchased online and downloaded online right from the manufacturer. Instead of going to the store to buy a “hard” copy, just download it!
- Journal - If you journal on paper, try keeping your journal on your computer by using a word processing program like Microsoft Word, or an online alternative.
- Print Double-Sided - If you have to print, use recycled paper and print double-sided!
- Turn off your computer - When you’re not using your computer, turn it off or put it into a standby or sleep mode.
This article was written in part for Blog Action Day.
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Tags: General, Blog Action Day
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Don’t just read your newspaper online, use word Reading view (which is also the default view in 2007) to read even long documents.
i personally use this feature a lot on my not so eye-friendly CRT.
if you must print, check if your printer also have a saving mode and/or lower resolution - it is not only about saving paper, but also saving other types of consumable (not just the ink/toner, but also it’s packaging. not to mention a lot of money.
if a test done recently (link missing) is correct, if you just turn on a Blank screen saver on ur CRT, you will save power, cause black, is using less power then white/colorful images. this is of course only for CRT, since LCD just let light from the back to pass through to the front. in them, u can just lower the brightness if you can.
This is avoiding paper when it is recyclable and replacing it with electricity which’ll increase global warming.
@Jack of all Trades: Those are some great tips! I didn’t even think about the packaging and such that is saved.
The energy consumption is extremely minimal though when you think about the amount of time you’ll spend reading the news or sending an email.