Eco-Friendly Products

What do you associate with the latest high technology gadgets? It will differ from one individual to another. Some may think that they’re trendy. Others might think that they’re more trouble than they're worth. Some almost certainly feel that they’re confusing and can be difficult to operate. It very much depends on your own individual viewpoint. However, it’s probably a fair bet to say that you almost certainly don’t associate the latest “must have” electronic gadget with doing your bit for the environment – but electronic devices can, in the right circumstances, be environmentally friendly.

Digital photo frames for example have become very popular over the last two or three years. Due to competition in the market, prices have fallen dramatically and you can now pick up perfectly serviceable examples for around about the same price that you might pay for a conventional photo frame. Digital frames have a number of perceived advantages, one of which is their ability to display hundreds of different photographs using a single frame.

Much will depend upon just how many photographs you usually print out in a typical year, but if you are in the habit of taking a lot of snaps, then the use of a digital frame to display your photo collection could have a positive environmental impact. Whether you remove the need to have hard copies of photos developed at a processing lab or if you just print out less using your computer, you will wind up consuming fewer materials.

Another good, and very topical, example is the current trendy gadget – the e-book reader. E-book readers have actually been available for quite some time, but they really caught the public's imagination in 2009 and now seem poised to increase sales even further in 2010. The Kindle reader is currently the most popular by a long way and Sony have also established a good market presence.

125 million trees are cut down every year to provide the paper required to supply the U.S. book, magazine and newspaper industry sector. Huge amounts of water, energy and a whole host of chemicals are also consumed to feed the nation’s reading habit. What's more, books being a physical product require to be delivered from the publisher's warehouse to the book store – typically using road transportation. The gas used by customers who drive to and from the retail outlet is also a factor in determining the carbon footprint of a typical book.

Electronic books of course, do not consume large amounts of paper, ink etc. in their production. Additonally, since they are not a physical product, it's possible to deliver them over the internet rather than by using the road transport network.

Of course, as both e-book readers and digital photo frames are themselves physical products, they do require both materials and energy for their production. They also require delivery to the point of sale or direct to the final customer. Even so, according to studies have shown that, even when the materials consumed are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that devices of this type can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to some extent, on the number of books you read or how many photos you usually print each year).