Are Ubuntu user's green?(Eco friendly)

[yester64]

I always wondered if user's who like opensource are also perhaps more greener.
Do you recycle your used up toner/ink or do you dispose it in the landfill. How about old electronics.
And if you do, where do you recycle it.

No, this isn't political more responsible computer user.

p.s. here where i live i see a lot of electronics in the sidestreets. Someone picks them up i suppose, but why we are doing it like that?

[-grubby]

Well, I don't use Ubuntu, but my current computer (a Mac Mini) is apparently the most "green" desktop system there is. And if I keep it long enough to want to recycle it, it's apparently made out of materials recyclers love.

[Dharmachakra]

There are plenty of groups around here who take used up cartridges and old electronics. I just send my junk their way. I don't do it to be 'green' though, it just makes sense.

[Nevon]

I would love it if people would just leave their old electronics by the side of the road. More loot for me! :D

I'm not a very green person, I'm afraid. I only do green things when it's convenient (or at least not a hassle) for me, or when I have no choice. I don't drive a car and I don't have AC. However, I don't really think that one person can do any real difference. Once corporations take their responsibility, I'll do my part.

[t0p]

I've got green intentions but a lazy body. I tend to do the green thing only if it's relatively easy. Fortunately, here in the UK (and the rest of the EU too, I presume, since it's mostly European laws that are making it happen) it is becoming easier and easier to recycle stuff. For instance, my local authority provides households 2 rubbish bins: one for recyclable stuff (paper, metals, some plastics) and another for the rest. Many stores now have to accept the return of packaging for recycling. And some time this year, any store that sells over a certain amount of batteries must provide battery recycling facilities. The same with electronic goods.

Problem is, even all that isn't always easy enough. If you don't have a car, it is difficult to take packaging and old washing machines back to the store. And it is hard to carry old fridges and cookers to the tip. So those large items of junk often end up at the roadside. My local authority will send round a truck to collect the stuff if you pay them a small fee. But that small fee isn't small enough for many people, when the alternative (the roadside) is free.

As for whether Ubuntu users are greener than users of other OSes... I don't think so. We're all just humans, you know? And the flesh is weak.

[NovaAesa]

I can't be stuffed most of the time. The council hasn't provided my residence with recycling bins (which they do for the rest of Australia) so I just throw recyclables in with the regular garbage.

[nubimax]

here where I live most electronics are repaired most ink cartridges are refilled. I even know of one shop that rebuilds tube type TV's.
M.

[sudoer541]

No I dont care about recycling... just enjoying my life...who cares about recycling lol seriously!!!:D;)

[squilookle]

I don't think being green or not is related to choice of OS.

I do recycle, as we have a recycling bin and a normal bin. Before we got the recycling bin I did take my glass to the recycling point at the Supermarket.

There are times when I get lazy though, e.g. if something would really need washing before being put in the recycling, then I have been known to just throw it in the normal bin. I believe recycling is important, but so is alot of other stuff...

[ElSlunko]

I'm as green as I can be. I like being efficient.

[Giant Speck]

I throw away things.

[SuperSonic4]

When it comes to paper and plastic/glass etc the local council does a collection fortnightly so I chuck them out (including a suspiciously high amount of empty cider cans)


Thanks to the WEEE companies must provide waste facilities for electronics but wherever possible I re-use. Instead I go to a store that refills my ink cartridge (and save about £10 in the process), my electronics are kept as spares

[speedwell68]

I am quite green. I drive older, fuel efficient cars, I recycle and I compost. We avoid processed foods and try to make all our food from scratch.

[tubezninja]

I wouldn't say I'm particularly green, in my opinion anyway, but I guess certain things I do are somewhat green.

Where I live, recycling is mandated by state laws, so paper, plastic, aluminum and glass are all recycled (around here, we just separate bins out for things that need to be separated, and trash and recycled stuff just go out to the curb on separate days). I used to drink bottled watter, but have switched to SIGG (http://mysigg.com/)s and filtered water.


And I guess It's also helpful that I've been switching from single-instance physical servers for my projects and work to servers running multiple VPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_server)es, so fewer boxes are doing more work, and less aggregate energy is being used.

Beyond that though, I'm not going particularly out of my way to stay green. I still drive a car to work because although public transportation is available, the car is more convenient, the per-trip cost is actually less in my case, and it saves me tons of time in both that driving is faster and that I can go and stay when I please instead of having to mind a schedule. I do turn off electronics and stuff when I'm not using them, but my home computer stays on because I can and do log into it remotely.

[MaxCarnage]

I live out in the country so my lifestyle precludes some of the "green-ness" that you can afford living in a city. Recycling would be more of a pain so I don't bother, I have a long commute to work, I have livestock that supposedly contributes to greenhouse gasses, I have burn piles for getting rid of dead stuff and some garbage. I also use Ubuntu on my laptop and desktop and my wife has a Macbook. So I would say that my choice of OS has little to nothing to do with a greener lifestyle.

I also don't buy into the "man-made" climate change furor, btw.

[insane_alien]

my laptop is green. completely powered by a homemade wind turbine. it produces ~150W on average.

[yester64]

Just want to clarify something.

I am not particular green myself, but i am always torn inside if i know something ends up on a landfill if it could been recycled.
And my statement about ubuntu was kinda bold. But who knows.

And it wasn't my intention to connect something with global warming. This is up to everyone, because everyone is en titled to his or her opinion. The fact state otherwise perhaps. (climate change happens all the time, climate is nothing static)

I have checked some stores and i am glad to tell that you can easily recycle your used electronic waste (previously useful).
Besides it is kinda nice to know how everyone does since everyone lives somewhere on the globe.
I know in germany that we have a lot of bins where you can dispose your old and unwanted materials.
Here in the states its much different. But i think that differs also from state to state.

I life in L.A, CA and this is the capital of cars. So without a car you are nothing and get nowhere.
But i do try to be as green as possible like switching off electronic i don't use. Nothing special really and so i guess i am like the average being around.

[The Real Dave]

Me and my family aren't hugely green anymore. There are limited recycling facilities near us, just glass, cans and clothes, no paper recycling :( You can buy a bin and get it collected, but we can't afford that.

We recently got double-glazed windows (its an old house) to improve insulation, doubled up the insulation in the attic, and we've been running energy efficient lights for years (they almost last forever ;))

We drive a fairly economical car, a 1.3 petrol which gets ~43MpG. We don't drink bottled water, which is a very American thing lol. We do however have a water purifier, filters the water down to 2 parts per million. Brilliant machine, and draws about the same energy as a light bulb, plus that needed for the pump.

Biggest thing though is our electricity provider. We're still on the same grid, but we're part of Airtricity, so we get our power from lovely green wind turbines :) And its cheaper too :)


Stop me feeling guilty about leaving my servers on all the time ;)

[audiomick]

I try and be as green as I can, which isn't all that hard in a middle size city in Germany. The recycling mechanisms here are very well set up and fairly easily available. I am sometimes quite at odds with my conscience through my work as a sound engineer. The job involves using sometimes considerable amounts of power (more for the lighting than the PA systems, but it is all in one boat...) for sometimes very questionable usefulness. When I see things like a couple of thousand square metres of cheap carpet going into the dumpmaster at the end of a job, or the caterer using plastic wrap to secure his palettes instead of ratchet straps, I do wonder about the world...

As far as the community here goes, based on what I have read here in various threads, I would guess that the "green element" here is no greater or smaller than in society in general. I had expected it to be higher here, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Chronon]

In response to the OP: I think I am on the greener side of the distribution. However, I do fly quite a long distance to visit family every couple of years, so perhaps not.

[wewantutopia]

I USUALLY try to live using the smallest footprint possible.

For the community, since there seem so many Linux users that keep systems around that would be obsolete using other OSs, I would say that makes it a bit greener than some other computer communities.

Extending the life of any functional device/object is definitely "green"

[skymera]

I always wondered if user's who like opensource are also perhaps more greener.
Do you recycle your used up toner/ink or do you dispose it in the landfill. How about old electronics.
And if you do, where do you recycle it.

No, this isn't political more responsible computer user.

p.s. here where i live i see a lot of electronics in the sidestreets. Someone picks them up i suppose, but why we are doing it like that?

Well i run a Samsung EcoGreen HDD, does that count?

On the other hand i run a 10,000RPM hard drive right next to it.
A Core2Quad blasting out heat like no tomorrow
And a GTX260 C216 doing my lovely Compiz

But i DO recycle my Pepsi cans!

[Kai69]

The problem with trying to be green is that even when I recycle I know my plastics end up being shipped to China to be recycled.