The uses of PCs are being constantly multiplied, mainly after the arrival of the Internet. Today in western countries, they substitute quite often telephone, dictionaries and encyclopaedias, cinema or television, board games... Even on the Mediterranean area, there is a great disparity in the use of computers . In general, the countries of the Southern shore of the Mediterranean, do not have yet a dependency that may be even harmful (in Spain for example, there have been alerts because of the behavioural disturbance in young people "hooked on" computer chats). Either if we have a lot or few computers, let us prevent that the technology brings us farther than desirable.
The constant coming up of new models which are quicker, or have more capacity or new features is part of the consumerism escalation. According to the entity of recovery of computers "Fundación Bip Bip", in Spain are thrown away 42,000 tons of computer waste every year, and only an 8% is reused. We have a lot of means to use a computer without having to buy a new one.
Free programs fight against monopolies and also enhances that we take the maximum benefit of technological advancements.
We have several tools to minimize the electricity consumption of a computer.
academic centres: Càtedra de Programari Lliure i Dept. d'Arquitectura de Computadors de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya;
experts: Alex Castán, informàtic;
administrations: Dept. de Medi Ambient de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Ecolabel de la Unió Europea;
organizations: Asociación de Estudios Geobiológicos, Basel Action Network, Corporate Watch, Fundación Bip Bip, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Taiwan Environmental Action Network, Tecnologia per Tothom.
