Is the green campaign working? Maybe something huge is needed to save the environment from the inevitable doom that we are apparently hurtling towards; something like an o-zone machine, a giant freezer for the ice-caps, a magic wand, that sort of thing. If so us gadget lovers in our average households will have to leave that to the scientists and wizards, but as the greenies like to remind us, ‘it’s the little things that help.’
And slowly but surely the average household is cutting its energy consumption to less damaging levels. Most people try and take their own bags to a supermarket, or use a bag-for-life, most people use the strange looking energy saving light bulbs and most people would feel too guilty to go out and buy a new diesel running SUV just for laughs.
But one of the most energy hungry items in the house is the television, or at least it used to be. However, even that’s began to change now as new technology demands less, the television’s average electricity consumption has fallen by more than half according to new figures from energy campaigners.
Ross Lammas, the founder of energy efficiency site Sust-it said new lighting developments were largely responsible for the drop in T.V power usage: “The main thing that’s driving it is the LED technology to backlight the TV. There has been a surge in the past 18 months, with LED TVs really picking up. They were very expensive at first, but are now equivalent on price to LCDs.”
And with mandatory A-G energy labels for TVs due in December the household may continue to get green. The problem is though, as white goods become more efficient, we are using up all the electricity saved (and more) on the latest environmental Devil, the iPhone.
That’s right, according to experts our love of gadgets here in Britain threatens to send energy use spiralling as consumer electronics quickly become the most environmentally-unfriendly objects in our home. ~
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