Writes Daniel S. (L6th)
During a recent lunch break on the 4th of June, a group of roughly twenty students attended Panglossia to hear Lower Sixth student Joshua R. talk about “L’impact des pixels sur l’environnement”, in which he really exposed the hidden impact of our everyday technology habits. The talk taught us about how a standard screen uses over two million pixels, which require finite minerals such as lithium and cobalt. This driving demand causes terrible humanitarian issues in counties like the DRC, where mining involves widespread forced labour and child exploitation.
Our digital footprint is also shocking. The world creates roughly 65 million tonnes of e-waste a year, and training just one AI model emits five times the carbon of an average car’s lifetime. In short, we learnt that our digital world isn’t invisible. While 41 countries are finally passing e-waste laws, we can’t simply wait for governments. The presentation proved that small, immediate changes matter. We should stop buying extra screens we do not need, actually return our old tech to the IT department, and pull the plug on our devices every single night.
