Besides bridging the digital divide, the rationale for donating computers for reuse is that it is supposed to be greener. Even before a computer is switched on for the first time, as much as 75% of its lifecycle fossil fuels have already been consumed in manufacturing it, not to mention around 1.7 tonnes of raw materials and water. With half a million PCs disposed of globally every day and nearly half a billion mobile phones discarded each year, it stands to reason that giving your old laptop to someone who needs it is one sure-fire way to curb emissions, save precious resources and help the developing world in the process.
But in passing on our PCs, we need to also take into account an additional cost that is often overlooked or ignored.
Besides the emissions an individual PC is responsible for, there are the subsequent e-missions – the greenhouse gases incurred by the internet itself. In 2007 the world's computers, monitors, telecoms networks, routers and the data centres that keeps the internet running carried a carbon mouse-click of 830m tonnes of CO2. Even by the industry's own conservative estimates, that's the equivalent of 2% of all global greenhouse gas emissions for that year, putting it on a par with the aviation industry.
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