Digital Waste and the Climate Crisis

The project aims to draw attention to the relationship between digital waste and the climate and environmental crisis. The project work is compatible with the environmental and climate policies of the Erasmus Programme. It is also compatible with the quality and lifelong learning principles that the Program aims for Youth workers.
PROJECT GOALS:
+ Gaining a culture of being energy efficient and using digital tools more effectively,
+ To develop digital habits such as regularly cleaning unused digital content and minimizing unnecessary backups to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions,
+ To raise awareness of the phenomenon of digital waste,
+ Gaining a culture of explaining to society the relationships between global warming and environmental/climate crises through the use of digital tools
+ Gaining more volunteers for a sustainable green future, which is one of the Erasmus+ principles.
The project was generated from the following research:
HAP is part of the consortium of a project on digital waste. His international studies have revealed that digital waste largely triggers the climate crisis and that there is no level of awareness on this issue, especially in the new generation. According to the literature review conducted by HAP, 20 million new trees need to be planted annually in the USA alone to prevent the
damage of digital waste generated in a year (Univ of California, 2023). While statistical information is provided to the public and a positive perception is created about the increase in internet users, the share of digital content in global warming is not
explained. When we observe our surroundings, we encounter situations where everyone on the bus, subway, or in the neighborhood is watching/downloading/sharing something from their smart devices. This situation causes young people to
become antisocial, increases spinal cord, waist/neck and eye disorders, and causes more environmental/climate damage.
Our project aims to contribute to creating social awareness about these situations.
Files we do not use in our digital tools contribute to energy consumption and carbon emissions. When we store files on our devices or in the cloud, energy is required to store and maintain them. This energy consumption can increase over time, especially if we have many files we are not actively using. In addition, if we back up our files regularly, this increases
energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Storing a 1-megabyte file in the cloud for a year can consume between 0.2 and 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 0.1 to 0.8 kilograms, depending on the energy mix (DW, 2023).
It's important to remember that while the energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with individual files may be small, the cumulative impact of all digital activities can reach a significant amount.
+ According to TUIK data, the rate of individuals using the Internet in Turkey is 85%, and the rate of individuals using the Internet regularly is 82.7%. The most common use of the internet in Turkey was watching movies or TV series, with 26.4%
(TUIK, 26/08/2022). According to the Digital 2021 report, a joint study of We Are Social and Hootsuite; 59.5% of the world's population is internet users. People spend 6 hours and 54 minutes on the internet daily. There are 4.2 billion active social media users in the world. The average daily time spent on the internet in Turkey is 7 hours 57 minutes. In Turkey, 70.8% of the population is social media users (https://recrodigital.com).
The above results show that high levels of digital content are uploaded/downloaded and high levels of electrical energy are used, causing carbon emissions and global warming at the same rates, but there is no willingness to share these with the public.
Storing a 1 megabyte file in the cloud for a year can consume between 0.2 and 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 0.1 to 0.8 kilograms, depending on the energy mix. A person in the USA uses 140 GB of data per month. This causes 2.1 kilowatt-hours or approximately 0.59 kg of pollution. The population of the USA is 327 million. Therefore, each year, the data production and consumption habits of US citizens emit approximately 2.4 billion kg of CO2. To deal with this pollution, 230 million trees must be planted. An average tree can absorb 10 kg of CO2 per year.
By 2022, Cisco estimates this will be 304GB per person per month. For this, it is necessary to plant more than 500 million trees. Recording and storing 100 gigabytes of data per year in the cloud results in a carbon footprint of approximately 0.2 tons of CO2 relative to the usual US electricity mix (UCLA, 2022).
Participating link:
https://forms.gle/qpd1shrctwx1peNg9