I believe that although computers can be used as a tool to spread awareness about problems in the environment, they cause a lot of environmental problems themselves. Pollution caused by the production of computer hardware, as well as from the cleaning agents used to clean computers, is a great hazard to the
Environment and the people that live in it. People leave their computers on non-stop resulting in a lot of energy consumption and enormous amounts of paper are being used daily to print out electronically stored data. It causes health problems as well as economic problems and is in urgent need of treatment. Also when examining the problem of pollution caused by computers and their production, it is evident that all computer hardware is responsible for the problem, for it is the hardware's production that causes the pollution. Pieces of hardware such as keyboards, monitors, mice etc. are all made out of plastic, which is usually not recyclable. Other chemicals found in these tools are also often bad for the environment and cause damage. As a result of the assembly of pieces inside the computer such as wafers and computer chips a lot of toxic materials are given off causing further harm to the environment.
The evolution of computers causes harm because old computers are often thrown out only to be replaced by larger computers, which consume more energy and therefore cause even more pollution. They too, will eventually be thrown out and replaced. As the demand for larger monitors and more memory chips grows due to developments in multimedia, so does the level of toxins and fumes released into the environment contributing even more to the problem. These are given off when the monitors and chips are being produced and manufactured.