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Showing posts with label Green Computing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Computing. Show all posts

Saturday, May 30, 2020

May 30, 2020

Initiate and Standard

.....Hello guys Welcome to techsmart.

Global Initiatives


Some of the countries have implemented few initiatives which can affect the whole world. In this section those initiatives are discussed.

1. United Nations

United Nations has forwarded and implemented one program called StEP Solving the E waste Problem which deals with e-waste problems.

 Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP)

(What is StEP program? What are its objectives?)
StEP is an initiative that is open to all i e. governmental organizations companies, NGOs, non-profit organizations, academic institutions around the world. This is collaborative global initiative leading to global thinking knowledge awareness and innovation in development and management of mentally and ethically sound e waste recovery, reuse, recycle and prevention.

Objectives of StEP Program
  1. Improvement of supply chains to optimize the life cycle of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE)
  2. Increasing public, scientific, and business knowledge by conducting and sharing scientific research
  3. Envelop nuclear policies
  4. Exercising concern about disparities like digital divide between industrialized and industrializing countries
  5. Closing material loop.
  6.  Contamination reduction.
  7. increasing reuse of equipment's and resource utilization.

{What are the principles of StEP program?)
SEP is based on five guiding principles. They are as follows:

1. Work of StEP is based on scientific assessments. It incorporates a comprehensive view of the environmental social and economic aspects of e- waste.
2. Research on entire life cycle of EEE and their supply, process and material fuws is conducted by StEP.
3. Research and Pilot project done by StEP contributes towards proving Solution to e-waste problems.
4. StEP expresses disapproval of all illegal activities related to e-waste like illegal shipments and reuse/ recycling practices which are harmful to the human health and environment
5. SEP promotes safe energy efficient and ecological reuse and recycling practices around the globe in socially responsible manner

Task Forces of StEP

(short note on StEP task forces.)
Task Forces of STEP program are :

1.     Policy and Legislation
2.     ReDesign
3.     ReUse
5.     ReCycle
6.     Capacity Building

These task forces address e-waste issues by conducting research and analysis in their respective domain to implement innovative projects. These task forces focus on the research, analysis and facilitation of pilot projects that are carried out in line with StEPs objectives.

1. Policy and Legislation :

Policy and Legislation task force deals with reporting and analysing the status of existing techniques and policies for managing e-waste and recommending future e waste management solutions based on their study and research.

Following things are done by this task force :
  •  It analyzes and evaluates various legislation's and directives (like European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), etc.) for controlling reusing and recycling e waste, minimizing their environmental impacts and finding out how the positions and directives contribute to sustainable environment.
  • It studies various green purchasing schemes to find out how this purchasing affects the trade of e-waste and used electronics products.
  •  Find out how to manage e-waste problem in industrializing regions such as Africa and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
  • Support the sustainable use of Information and Communications technology (ICT) in industrializing countries.

2. ReDesign :

ReDesign task force focuses on design of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) to support sustainable solution to e-waste problem. Main objective is to optimize life cycle characteristics of EEE. Recycling activities are mainly for industrialized nations. This task force focuses on identifying identifying specific issues in industrializing countries. Redesign is considered as measure by this task force for optimizing life time of certain EEE products through products through the optimization of design features of those products.

Some of the tasks are :
  • Assess and identify critical design aspects in the treatment of end-of to products. This could include material composition and toxins, design or any other components that has impact on product's end of life.
  • Finding out current industry approaches to end-of-life products and Identifying current environmental, economical and regional design considerations.
  • Development and demonstration of new design solutions of various EEE products.

3. ReUse : 

ReUse task force aims at development of sustainable and consistent reuse principles practices, and standard for EEE products. It deals with extending the ire of EEE products, changing consumers behavior for accepting reuse principles and practices, reducing flow of irresponsible reuse between developed and developing countries:

Some of the tasks are:
  • Development of common nomenclature for definitions of reuse refurbishment, EEE products etc.
  • Find out how equipment's are entering into reuse category.
  • Development of globally consistent, sustainable, transmissible principles and standards for reusing EEE.
  • This task force identifies common barriers to product life extended proposes practices to overcome those barriers.
  • Cross-border guidelines need to be developed to identify when environmentally, and socially preferable to recycling 

4. ReCycle :

The objective of this task force is to enhance instruction systems and technologies to realize sustainable recycling system

Some of the objectives are:
  • Collecting and assessing economic, environmental and social features of e-waste recycling in the developed country.
  • Recycling system is evaluated to recommend development eco/energy-efficient resource cycle.
  • Analyzing shipments of toxic substances from developed to developing countries.
  • Finding all the constraints for sustainable resource cycles
  • Developing and describing the new technologies for treatment of  WEEE in both developing and developed countries
5. Capacity Building:

The objective of this task is to draw attention the problems related to e-waste. This can be achieved by making thes of study and research done by task forces available to everyone. To task force depends on networks, internet, etc. The idea here is infrastructure to sustainably solve e-waste related problems.

Some of the objectives are:

  • Identifying various approaches adapted by many countries by means of mutual learning environment and then implementing and test those approaches on other countries.
  • Establishing standards in the form of guidelines for capacity building.


Basel Action Network


(Write a short note on Basel Action Network)
Basel Action Network (BAN) in headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It in charitable non-governmental organization which focus on reducing the export of hazardous  waste from developed countries to developing countries in it prevents dumping of toxic wastes from industrialized countries to industrializing countries It also works to BAN toxic trade and promote green, clean and toxics-free environment. Following functions are performed by BAN:

  • Journalists, academies and the general public get information about waste trade from BAN
  • BAN has produced Model National Legislation on hazardous waste trade for industrializing countries. It also provides international policy advocacy.
  • It arranges many field researches and investigations in industrializing countries and provides various kinds of proof like photos and videos of e waste trade.
  • With many NGOs around the world, BAN participates in campaign to counter toxic trade
 1) BAN Campaigns
(Q. What are the campaigns run by Basel Action Network?)
BAN runs following campaigns

1. Electronic Stewardship Project

This program seeks to prevent export of toxic substances to industrializing countries E-Stewards Initiative is a certification program for responsible electronics recycling. Recyclers are called as e-Stewards certified if they are following all laws (national and international concerning e-waste and its responsible disposal

2. Green ship recycling

It is focused on responsible disposing of end-of-life shipping vessels. The purpose is to ensure that ships are recycled properly and stop the illegal dumping of hazardous substances travelling from industrialized countries to industrializing countries

3. Investigative Watchdog

Basel Action Network (BAN demands responsible electronic recycling In this program, research team investigates for improper dispose of electronics and on finding report the name to relevant authorities

4. Basel Advocacy

BAN is the supporter of the Basel Convention Basel Convention restricted international hazardous waste trade. This convention requires developed countries to obtain prior informed consent from developing countries where hazardous waste is to be exported.

5. Zero Mercury

This campaign promotes elimination of mercury use in product

6. Basel Ban Ratification

BAN promotes the Basel Ban Amendment Ratification globally. It works to prevent the weakening or failing of this amendment.

Basel Convention

(Short note on Basel Convention)

  • The Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, generally referred as the Basel Convention in an international treaty that was designed to lessen movement of hazardous substances from developed countries to less developed countries.
  • It also aims at preventing transfer of toxic waste from developed countries to less developed countries. It also deals with reducing the amount of toxicity and waste generated
  • The objective of this convention is to protect environment and human health against adverse effects of hazardous waste. The convention became effective in 5 May 1992

Origins

Cost of disposing hazardous waste rose because environmental laws became stricter in 1970

  • Khian Sea Waste Disposal incident : This is one of the incidents which led to creation of Basel Convention. A ship was carrying incinerator ash and it was sailed from Philadelphia in the United States. It has dumped half of its load on Haitian before being forced away. It was sailed for many months changing its name many times None of the port was accepting it, so it dumped its toxic land at sea.
  • Koko case : This wan a 1988 case in which 5 ships transported 8000 barrels of hazardous waste from Italy to the town of Koko in Nigeria. A farmer living there had agreed to store these waste on his farmland for $100 per month as a rent

Obligations


  • Basel Convention imposes various conditions on import and export of hazardous waste. There are strict requirements for notice, consent and tracking for movement of hazardous wastes across National boundaries This convention places prohibition on import and export of hazardous waste between Parties of convention and non-Parties.
  • The exception to this rule is if waste is subject to another treaty and does not take away from the Basel Convention, transportation Concur between party and non-party
  • Example : United States is a non-Party to Basel Convention and has several agreements that allow shipment of wastes to Basel Party countries.

Additional Regulation


  • The Basel Convention aims at reduction of waste generation. This is meant for discouraging the generation of e-waste which might then be shipped to other countries
  • Parties of prevention need to adapt a protocol that establishes like guidelines and procedures for damages stemming from the movement hazardous waste cross border. 

Controversy


  • Some people, NGOs and countries argued that convention did not go for enough Some countries and NGOs have argued for complete ban for Transporting all hazardous waste to less developed countries.
  • Convention did not prohibit hazardous waste exports to any location of Antarctica) but rather required a notification and consent system known as PIC Prior Informed Consent).
  • Also, good name of recycling was exploited by many waste traders this traders began to justify that exports are moving to recycling destination.
  • Many NGOs and countries believed that full ban was needed including exports for recycling.


1. North America


North America is home to two countries namely United States and C These two countries are struggling for implementing e-waste program. Both the countries are trying for getting national laws but not yet happened. Many states and provinces of these two countries have developed their own local e-waste

The United States

United States does not have national law for governing e-waste. United States, as a whole, does not have e-waste legislation's and regulations, but ma states of US have developed their local e-waste laws to protect the environment

1) EPEAT
(Q short note on EPEAT)
EPEAT stands for Electronic Product Environmental Management Tool. It is method to rank the products on the basis of life-cycle of product and rate it a Gold, Silver or Bronze based on a set of environmental performance criteria. This system addresses following criteria:

  • Reduction Elimination of toxic substances from the products
  • Use of recycled and recyclable materials in the products 
  • Product design for recycling 
  • Product longevity life cycle extension 
  • Energy efficiency Management of end-of-life products 
  • Corporate performance 
  • Packaging attributes

This system require manufacturers to make products which meet above mentioned criteria. Depending upon number of criteria met, products are rated Bronze, Silver or Gold. If product is meeting all required criteria, it is rated as Bronze. If product is meeting all required eritrea and at least 50% of the optional criterion, it is rated as silver. If product is meeting all required criteria and at least 75% of the optional criteria, it is rated as gold.

2) National Computer Recycling Act
(What is national computer recycling act?)
According to this act, whenever new computer i sell to consumer, consumer could be charged recycling for of US $10. According to this act, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to take various steps to manage e-waste in US. This act will do following things :

  • EPA is required to make a grant program to encourage Individuals. organizations and municipalities to start e-waste recycling programs.
  • Charge a fee of $10 on new computer purchase from consumers in order to fund the grant program.
  • EPA is required to conduct comprehensive e-waste study to make recommendations for addressing e-waste the problem.
  • Manufacturers, retailers, recycling Agencies, waste management professionals and administrators of EPA are required to be in full consultation with each other.

3) California
(What are the measures adopted by California?)
Some of the measures adopted by California to manage e-waste are:

(A) Electronic Waste Recycling Act 
(B) Cell Phone Takeback and Recycling 
(C) Rechargeable Battery Takeback and Recycling

(A) Electronic Waste Recycling Act

SB 20 (also known as Electronic Waste Recycling Act legislation was enacted by Californians to implement an e-waste recycling and recovering program. Intent of this act are:

  • Consumer should be provided cost free recycling opportunities  
  • Prevent the illegal dumping of e-waste.
  • Manufacturers are required to decrease the amount of hazardous substances used in certain electronic products sold in California.

(B) Cell Phone Takeback and Recycling

An 2001 also known as the Cell Phone: To Back and Recycling) net requires manufactures and California retailers to take back used cell phones from the consumers at no cost. The cell phones collected are then reused, recycled or disposed of properly. It is necessary for retailers to participate in this takeback program

(C) Rechargeable Battery Takeback and Recycling

According to AB 1125 also known as Rechargeable Battery Tikeback and Recycling law, retailers that are selling rechargeable batteries to consumers are required to take back the waste batteries for reuses, recycling or proper disposal  net to the consumers.

2. Australia


(What is Byteback program?)

  • Byteback program is designed by Australian government along with various industries to dispose e-waste safely. Byteback program is being run by sustainability Victoria in partnership with AIIA (Australian Information Industry Association) and founding partners Apple, Canon, Dell, Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, HP, IBM, Lenovo, and Lexmark.
  • Byteback was free to public and small businesses and provide opportunity to properly dispose unwanted computer equipment. With this program one can deposit up to 10 unwanted computer equipment at Byteback center and recycle them without any charge.
  • Once equipment's are accepted at Byteback centers, they are recycled. The industry partners of Byteback program was covering cost of transportation and cost of recycling of equipment's and All addresses environmental concerns.
  • Recycling helps in extracting precious metals such as, aluminium, nickel, lead, mercury, cadmium and lithium, from products and using them to make new products Byteback was a trial program.
  • It started in 2005 and ran until the end of 2008. From this program, it was expected that entire country should learn to properly dispose computer equipment's which are reached to their end-of-life.

3. Europe


(Short note on WEEE directives and RoHS adopted by Europe.)
Europe follows both the legislation i.e. Directive on WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and Directive on RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous  Substance) WEEE directive provide ways for collecting consumers all equipment free of charge. The aim is to increase recycling and reuse of WEEE . RoHS restrict the use of some hazardous materials into the products.

1) WEEE Directive

  • Europe adopted this WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). Directive in February 2003. As a first priority, the aim of this directive is prevention of WEEE. Also, it aims at increasing reuse, recycling, and other forms of recovery techniques of these wastes so as to reduce disposal e-waste. It is the responsibility of manufacturers to dispose WEEE.
  • Manufacturers are required to collect WEEE using any program established by them. This rule states that consumers should have possibility of turning old products to manufactures for free of charge. Then they are required for disposing of, recycling or refurbishing these old equipment's in ecological manner

2) ROHS

  • European Union adopted Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) in February 2003, The RoHS  directive restricts certain hazardous substance which is electrical and electronic equipment. These hazardous substances are:
  1. Lead (Pb) 
  2. Cadmium (Cd) 
  3. Mercury (Hg) 
  4. Hexavalent Chromium (Hex Cr)
  5. Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB)
  6. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) 
  • Any product following European RoHS directive must be tested to find presence of above six substances. According to this legislation, there must be no more than 0.01% of Cadmium and Hexavalent chromium, when calculated by weight of homogeneous materials.
  • Also, there must be no more than 0.1% of Lead, PBB, and PBDE, when calculated by weight of homogeneous materials. Any product compliant to RoHS must have only 100 ppm or less amount of mercury. That means when these substances are extracted from finished product, their weight should not exceed the limits set by RoHS legislation.

4. Asia


Many countries are working in the path of minimizing the impact of e-waste on their environments. This section explains about actions that are taken place in Asia to protect the environment,

1) Japan

(How is e-waste managed by Japanese?)

  • Japanese have their way of managing e-waste problem. They hired trains workers to dismantle and reuse the electronic materials which are use to mute new products. For example, glass, plastics and other material of old TVs can be reused in new television
  • There were two laws that have been implemented in Japan for dealing with e-waste management problem. First law is called LPUR (Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources). This law encourages manufacturers to recycle the goods and reduce the generation of the e-waste.
  • The second law is called LRHA (Law for the Recycling of Specified Kind of Home Appliances). This law enforces both consumers and manufacturers recycle home appliances.
  • According to this law, consumers have to pay for recycling home appliances This will include transportation costs and recycling fees. Consumers have pay to retailers for picking up their waste which is then recycled by the manufacturers.

2) China

(short note on China RoHS )

  •  China RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) is officially known as Management Methods for restricting the usage of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment's. This regulation helps in controlling usage of certain hazardous substances like lead, mercury, cadmium etc in electrical and electrical equipment's.
  • China RoHS is quite different from EU ROHS. There are many products which are included in China RoHS but not in EU RoHS. China RoHs includes following product types:
  1. Automotive devices 
  2. Medical devices
  3. Manufacturing equipment components
  4. Electronics
  5. Radar equipment 
  6. Packaging materials.
  • But, home appliances and toys are not included within its regulation.
  • Products being sold into China must be marked as compliant or non-compliant. Manufacturers, distributors and importers need to meet the limits and requirements of China RoHS in order to continue selling products in China.
  • China RoHS is implemented in two phases.
  1. certain restricted materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyls PBB), or Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether (PBDE) being used in products
  2. Second phase will restrict specific substances in products 
Types of Marking required on products

There are four types of marking/label required on product. They are
  • A label indicating information about usage of six restricted hazardous substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB, or PBDE) in the product. If these substances are present in the product, another label called Environment-Friendly Use Period (EFUP) should be on product which determines the date until which these hazardous substances will not cause pollution.
  • Table indicating information about which hazardous substances are contained in the product and the components) they are present in.
  • The type of packaging material and Goods to be disclosed on the outside packaging.
  • Date of manufacture of product must be marked on the product if EFUP label is need.

3. Korea

(Q. Write a short note on Korea RoHS.)

  • In April 2007, National Assembly of Korea adopted the Act for Recycling of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and vehicles into the law. This is also known as Korea RoHS.
  • This RoHS is designed to lessen the usage of Hazardous substances in the manufacturing of electrical and electronic equipment's. It also facilitates collection of used products from consumers and recycles them. This means manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment or automobiles must make efforts to facilitate recycling of waste by making them recyclable and lessening usage of hazardous substances.
  • Also, manufacturers or importers are required to take the used products back from consumers when selling new product to them regardless of whether the used product was manufactured by them without asking for any charges and then recycle them.
  • The act includes four main requirements:


  1. Restricting hazardous materials
  2. Designing efficient recycling technique 
  3. Recycling of WEEE
  4. Recycling vehicles


Review Questions

Q.1 Write a short note on solving the E-Waste Problem (SIEP).

Q.2 Write a short note on task forces of SIEP program.

Q.3 Write a short note on Basel Action Network.

Q. 4  Explain Basel Convention in detail.

Q.5 Explain National Computer Recycling Act

Q.6 Write a short note on various initiatives taken up by California.

Q.7 Write a short note on : (i) WEEE directives (ii) RoHS

Q.8  Explain Korea RoHS

 Q.9 Explain China RoHS

Thanks for Visiting






Friday, May 29, 2020

May 29, 2020

Carbon Footprints And Cost Saving

Hello guys it's Akash. in this post I'll share my knowledge about Carbon footprints and Cost Saving , I hope this post is helpful for you..

Company's Carbon Footprint

(Write a short note on carbon footprint)

  • A carbon footprint of organization is defined as the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by organization expressed as CO2. Since Carbon Dioxide can be produced by natural events, total amount of carbon footprint cannot be calculated.
  • So, when measuring company's carbon footprint, one must decide how complete one wants to be. Measuring carbon footprint of company actually requires collecting a lot of information from various areas of company like facilities, operations, transportation, purchase, travel etc.
  • Because of the requirement of gathering a lot of information for measuring carbon footprint, one need to decide boundaries in measurements like how far one must go in upstream and downstream direction. For example, when new servers are added to the data center, some amount of greenhouse gas will be generated. So, whether that amount will be calculated under company's statistics or under manufacturer's statistic
  • Also, who your company or your consumers) will be responsible for climatic impact of use and disposal of products that are being purchased by your company. Also, information which is being collected should be consistent so that it can be entered in the report of facilities, departments, locations and so forth.

1. Measuring

(How to measure carbon footprint of the company?)

To measure carbon footprint following four steps are used

  • Define what all things contribute to carbon footprint
  • Baseline should be set 
  • Track and analyse carbon footprint of organization
  • Report the results to stakeholders

1) Defining the borders

  • First step is to define what all things need to be measured. More the number of measurements, more difficult it will be. Also, talking less data will not give accurate information 
  • In the calculation one must consider both upstream and downstream event
  • For example: Impact of suppliers will be integrated in your company's carbon footprint or not Also, what about the products which are sold and out the door ? will those products impact be counted in your statistics?

2) Set Baseline

  • In this stop, baseline yearned to be established to measure the future progrets. Look for the unusual data in year selected. If there is drastic change in the data because of some changes in work environment, choose some different year.
  • These changes in work environment may be because of study introduced government guidelines

3) Tracking and analysing data

  • The next step involves finding out problems by tracking and analysing data collected. This step involves looking for any anomalies present in the data for e.g if there are 5 locations having same size and setup.and one location is showing unusually largo reading then it can be easily made out that there is some problem with that location
  • To the site like, if 5 locations are of different sizes and setup and all of them having home reading, then it can also be easily made out that there is some problem.

4) Reporting to stakeholders

  • Last step is reporting to the stakeholders. The stakeholders tan be CEO, employees etc Report will contain information about carbon footprint of company, steps taken to reduce it.
  • If not able to reach to the milestones, then all the problems faced should be explained to stakeholders

2. Details

Following steps need to be followed by organization to gather all details

1) Start with the basics: That I find out amount of energy used by employees of companies Le the energy used to get employees to work in organisation. Any online calculator can be used for calculating the amount of greenhouse gas generated by commuting employees. One can also calculate the amount of greenhouse gases created by organization because of electricity consumption in the data center .
2) Next step in examining the operation of company. That is considered what company buy, sells and produce. There are many outside consultant or other expert who can help to find out most accurate accounting of greenhouse gas emissions.
3) One should follow GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Protocol Initiative, a globally recognized reporting standard, to calculate amount of greenhouse gas emission. Using GHG protocol initiatives, companies must calculate their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Direct Emission by company: These emissions are from the sources owned by the company. For Example factory smokestacks, company vehicle, vents
  • Indirect Emission by company : These emissions are generated by the activities of company but the sources can be owned by outsider. For ample: when employees are travelling outside for company work emissions are generated by third party but it is because of employee.

3. Reasons to Bother

Measuring carbon footprint ways of measuring progress towards becoming green Reduction of carbon footprint can help meet various business goals like :
  • Improving efficiency of company
  • Cost can be reduced by efficiently using energy resources.
  • Adopting green practices can help smaller companies become more competitive.
  • Also, companies get more public recognition as they are reducing or eliminating their carbon footprint and thereby protecting environment and human health.
  • It helps suppliers to stand out within the supply chain as many organizations require commitment towards minimizing climate impacts from their suppliers

5. Plan for Future


     While measuring the carbon footprint one also need to plan for future. In future company, will grow, it will have many new servers in data center, and y more things which can increase company's carbon footprint. So no need to plan about how that growth's impact on be minimized


Cost Savings


Adopting Green IT can save up amount of organization money as compared to current practices Justify?
Adopting Green IT can have huge amount of organization's money compared to current practices. One of main reason for any organization to decide whether to green or not is cost. Following green practices does require cost initially but it saves not only money in Future but also environment.

1. Hardware

  • Cost factor can be reduced by reducing the number of hardware used in organisation and data center. For example, using virtualization technique, work of multiple servers can be done by one server thereby reducing cost and impact on environment.
  • Also, instead of disposing old computers and buying new energy efficient computers, use those old computers (if they can be repurposed on thin client which are just for displaying what is going on server.
  • All the computation and storage will be done by server. Also, if old computers om needed to be discarded then instead of purchasing conventional PCs, purchase thin clients as it requires less energy as compared to workstation.

2. Power

  • Power consumption is very important issue. The more power organization use, the more money organization has to spend. Also, the more power organization use, the more fossil fuels have to be burned by electrical utility thereby causing more greenhouse gases to be generated that is polluting environment by using power.
  • Power used by computers and data centers can be managed easily if one is enabling power management settings. There are many ways of reducing power consumption of PC:
  1. One should not use screen saver and keep its monitor on Monitor should go in suspend mode if it is not being med
  2. Set the timer for turning off the display. If computer is not being used for some time, display will power off automatically
  3. More brightness, more power consumption. So set the appropriate brightness level for screen to reduce power consumption.
  4. Instead of shut down, use sleep mode hibernate mode if PC is idle for longer time. In sleep mode/hibernate mode, power consumption is very low
  • If all computers of organization, follow the above ways of reducing power consumption the great amount of power can be saved.

There are some ways for reducing power consumption of data center:

  • Consolidating many applications onto fewer servers will reduce energy consumption and cooling requirements of server.
  • Virtualization improves hardware utilization and reduce the number of servers and storage devices thereby reducing power usage
  • Turn off the idle equipment
  • CPU power management feature should be turned on.

Review Questions

Q1. What is e-waste? Explain various toxins generated from e-waste,

Q2. What are the benefits of recycling electronic components?

Q3. How to reduce power consumption in the organization?

Q4. How to measure carbon footprint of the organization?

Q5. Write a short note on various ways to reduce cost.

Q6. Write a short note on equipment disposal.

Thank you for visiting
May 29, 2020

Green Computing

    Hello guys its Akash today we will discuss about Green Computing in details. Firstly we learn Overviews and Issues.

 Problems  

  • Many organizations are not following go green practices. The reason is money. Many organizations want to save environment, but they want to save money also.
  • One of the business rule says that to be successful, one should save money and increase the performance. The truth is, making infrastructure green costs more money at first, but thousands of dollars can be saved in future by adopting these changes.

1. Toxins

(What is E-waste ? What are the Toxins Generated from E-waste?)

  • Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing components of waste stream the world. These e-wastes contain various hazardous substances which are harmful to environment as well as to human health if they are not disposed carefully
  • When these electronic components breakdown, they release various toxic elements like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Arsenic Lithium, PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls), Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), etc.
(What are the benefits of recycling electronic components?)
E Waste problem can be solved if used products are disposed of carefully, reused or recycled. There are many benefits of recycling electronic components:
  • Recycling helps in recovering valuable materials from used electronic products which can be used as raw material to make new products. As a result, it helps in saving energy conserving resources, reducing pollution and decreasing greenhouse gas emission.
  • It helps in elimination of hazardous substances thereby protecting environment.
  • Donating e-waste to people who need it, leads to reuse of old functioning electronic equipment.
  • Create new job opportunities for recyclers.
  • Recycling helps in conserving landfill space too.
Various toxins are found in computers like:
  1. CRT hs Lead and Arsenic in it 
  2. Cables and circuit boards contain Polybrominated flame retardants 
  3. Zinc sulphide present in the interior of CRT screens 
  4. Mercury is present in switches 
  5. Cadmium present in semiconductor and circuit boards 
  6. Corrosion protection in steel is given by Chromium 
  7. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Wed for insulation wires and cables.

2. Power Consumption

(How to reduce amount of electricity used by computer)

Electricity is used to run all the desktop PCs, server switches and so on of any organization Also, cooling these electrons require mount of electricity This electricity is bought from the electrical utility Booking electricity requires money as well as it generate greenhouse gas, because electrical utility generate electricity by burning fossil fuels, Power is an important i n fur green organization the more power organization use, the more money organization have to spend and greater the greenhouse gas emission. It has become more difficult and expensive for organization from power consumption point of view. Some of the solutions are given below to reduce power consumption:
  • Virtualization:
Virtualization is achieved using specialized software which create partition of a physical server into smaller virtual servers to maximize server resources thereby reducing the amount of power consumption.
  • Generating power using other ways:
One way of reducing power consumption cont and also reducing carbon footprint of company is - instead of using electricity from electrical utility, company can go for generating its own power by using solar cells or wind turbines Also, if more power is generated, then it can be sold to electrical utility.

3. Heat


  • Cooling the electrical equipment is another important issue. Cooling alas require power consumption. The more equipment's data center have, the more heat that equipment generate and then the more power will be to cool those equipment's.
  • According to one research, cost of cooling data center is more than the IT equipment the data center supports. One way to reduce this cost impact. 

4. Equipment Disposal


  •  When computer and other devices become obsolete, they need to be discarded. If these devices are property disposed of, many useful materials are extracted from those devices which can then be used as raw material for other devices.
  • On the other hand, if not properly disposed of, they can be major sources of toxic or hazardous substances, but the main problem in there in no format legal, official process in place for proper disposal of electronics in man the places including the United States. But Europe and Japan have policies for handling end-of-life products.

5. Business of Recycling Process

  • Recycling of e-waste is complicated process. First step is to separate and plastics, and then shred the circuit board to separate iron, aluminium and copper from the precious metals such as gold, silver etc. Plastics cannot be reused. This process is quite expensive and labour intensive.
  • So many recycling businesses sell their e-waste to developing countries like Indian, China and other places. These places can be benefited by extracting valuable materials but at the same time it is going to affect the environment and human health because of the hazardous substances released from those e-wastes

6. Recycling Process


( short note on recycling process.)
  • Recycling process involves dismantling the e-waste equipment's into different components like power supplies, metal frames, circuit board, and plastics. This process is expensive and labour intensive so many of the states started adding an electronic waste recycling fee to the cost of new equipment's purchased by consumers.
  • In 2004, the State of California has started adding recycling fee to the cost of purchasing the new monitors and televisions. In 2007, British Columbia has also started adding recycling fee to the cost of new purchasing a new television, computer or computer components. Canada has also started similar practices of being responsible for electronics recycling.
  • For properly disposing these electronics, recycling plant found in the developed country are used. These recycling plants are capable of handling large amount of end-of-life electronics and separating them in safe manner These plants limit the amount of human contact with toxic materials during recycling processing
 (A) European Union 
  • Since disposal of 0-waste to landfill was banned by some European countries, new industry for e-waste processing has started. The first e- waste recycling system in Swiss) started with collection of old refrigerators. The scope was increased to include computers and other electronic devices
  • These old equipment's were to be collected for free of charge at sales points or other collection points. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive has been adopted by Europe. According to this directive, manufacturers are responsible for old equipment's.
(B) United States
  • Same states of US started banning Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT), circuit boards etc, from landfills because of the fear that these materials can pollute groundwater and air And some of the states have directive that e-waste should be hanged separately. But these directive are negative.
  • Some people brokers have started collecting these e-wastes and then shipped them to the developing countries where they are dispose of improperly hashing negative impact on environment and human health To reduce this. Basel Convention, an international treaty that was designed to lessen the movements of hazardous substances from developed countries to less developed countries, is designed. It also aims at preventing transfer of toxic waste from developed countries to less developed countries.
  • According to estimates of BAN (Basel Action Network), approximately 80% of e-waste sent out for recycling was actually shipped to less developed country like China, India and others for improper disposal. United States does not have national law for governing e-waste.
  • United States, as a whole, does not have e-waste legislation's and regulations, but many states of US have developed their local e-waste laws to protect the environment. California is the first state to develop such legislation followed by Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Texas.
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