What can students do?
From TheStudentWiki
Students can play a vastly important role in their University, Colleges or even in there home. Students can easily achieve this goal by this goal through green computing, by reducing their emissions through many simple tasks. Already 38% of students have gone green with energy saving devices. They can help go green by ensuring equipment is turned off when not using it, timers could be set to turn off equipment automatically. Launching a recycling program can also help encourage students. You could also find out what your University is doing to help and push them in the right direction. Luckily for us Leeds Metropolitan University is officially the greenest University in the country!
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Save the world, earn some money…
Great Britain has a massive upgrade culture, from new PC’s, games consoles, TV’s to handheld devices such as Ipods and mobile phones. When the new model comes out we just discard the old. Don’t do this! In Europe alone there’s over 6 million tones of electronic waste. As they say, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it! In this instance, don’t upgrade it! If you must upgrade simply earn yourself some beer money and sell the device onto someone who will use it, try Ebay If you want to be really green you could recycle the old device at your local recycling depot. Or even visit: Sitr for all your electronic recycling needs! Many major electronic manufactures now offer free recycling too! Names such as Dell or O2 are now involved!
A major factor in the mass amounts of electronic waste is PC’s and Laptops. Apple and Dell are seen to be the least environmentally friendly manufacturers as their products contain the most toxins. Most of the 183 million computers that are bought globally are turned into junk within 3 years of buying them. Once again upgrade the system first, buy new parts and sell or recycle the old!
We all own at least one, probably more, the mobile phone. Upgraded usually once a year too… Most shops and mobile phone providers offer a trade-in-service for you old phone, usually in the form of hard cash! Phones4U or Vodaphone are good ports of call, offering up to a £80 trade in value. Alternatively visit Enviorfone who offer money for your old unused phone, even if it’s broken too! What are you waiting for? Go raid your drawers for that old phone!
Green Print…
This is a piece of software that can help students save both paper and electricity. This program works by finding wasted pieces of paper in all your documents your ready to print. Green print finds gaps in your work and tells the user how they could change the document in order to reduce the amount of paper that would have been used. This piece of software uses an easy and friendly graphical user interface in order to make this task quick and easy for the user to encourage them to save paper, printing costs and cut down on their carbon footprint.
Solar Power Possibilities…
Most, if not all students over look some of the new technologies that are available to us today.
If a solar bag isn't your style or way over budget go for the a charger that fits in your hand. The £45 Solio charger which is available from Better Energy Systems gives about one hour of phone time from one hour of sunshine, according to the manufacturer. Good luck finding the 1 hour of sun though!
Finally a must for those little electronic devices we use all the time.. AA USB batteries I hear? Just plug them into a spare USB slot and watch them charge with life! Visit USB Battery's and at £10.99 for x2 rechargeable batteries.. Bargin!
Overview
Simple really, just everyday tasks such as switching off a plug or conscientious buying will make the world a much nicer place, not to mention the boost in our bank balance!
By: Richard Perkins, Jakey Blakey , Tanya Matthews and Laura West
