Call to Clean Up Digital Life on World Cleaning Day

Sustainable Production and Consumption Association calls for digital life cleaning on 19 September World Cleanup Day, highlighting the need to reduce digital carbon footprint and lower the cost of energy consumption on our wallets and climate change. 19 September World Cleanup Day is one of the largest global civil movements uniting 180 countries with the goal of waste collection and raising widespread awareness for a cleaner and healthier planet. This year, the Let's Do It World Foundation launched a civil action saying "Let's Do It, Clean Digital Waste and Protect Nature" while minimizing pandemic risks. Prof. Dr. Filiz Karaosmanoğlu, Faculty Member at Istanbul Technical University and Chair of the Sustainable Production and Consumption Association (SÜT-D), stated that SÜT-D will participate in Let's Do It Turkey's digital cleanup movement and will mobilize our green power to reduce our country's digital carbon footprint.

Our visible and invisible waste matters

Prof. Dr. Filiz Karaosmanoğlu said: "Whether at home, school, work, on the road, in fields, forests, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, or during leisure, we always generate waste. Paper, plastic, wood, glass, metal, waste vegetable oil, used mineral oil, rubber, batteries and electrical-electronic waste (e-waste) among others. We can see our recyclable waste. It is important that responsible citizens contribute so that all of these are processed in our waste sector as national wealth and gain added value. We also have invisible digital waste. When using technology, we have our computers, laptops, smartphones. In this wonderful digital world, in our digital home, we have personal files, photos, games, videos, backups, email inboxes, files and applications we use and don't use. There is digital education. We have wired and wireless access networks serving us, digital data centers-servers, digital telephone exchanges, e-commerce sites, and e-banking. Everywhere, in our online life, we create digital waste," he said. [caption id="attachment_104492" align="aligncenter"] Filiz Karaosmanoğlu[/caption]

Reduce our carbon footprint in our digital home to protect our nature and climate

In our digital home, we consume electricity when using the internet and our devices. This consumption releases greenhouse gases that cause global temperature rise and climate change. When we search the internet or send an email, we create a small carbon footprint through electricity consumption. However, data centers and intelligent servers provide energy-intensive services, creating high carbon footprint through high electricity consumption, said Prof. Karaosmanoğlu. "4.1 billion people, 53.6 percent of the world population, use the internet. According to the assessment by Dr. Mike Hazas, Faculty Member at Lancaster University, digital life is responsible for 3.7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Hazas notes that this amount equals global greenhouse gas emissions from air transportation and forecasts that greenhouse gas emissions will double by 2025. The conclusion is that online browsing, working, and energy consumption costs us money and carries a high carbon footprint with a steep price of climate change for our planet. We must definitely clean our digital home," he said.

Join the digital cleanup movement

Prof. Karaosmanoğlu emphasized the need to clean by deleting digital waste, organizing email inboxes and files, and called for participation in the Digital Cleanup Movement to gain storage space, speed, time and order in our digital home and succeed online.