Do your Emails pollute the Environment?

 I wanted to publish this article long back just because I observed one thing, lot of people do not manage their emails that well. To just view a website people are forced to enter their email IDs. This results in a lot of junk messages piling up in one's inbox. Some spam emails are auto-deleted after some time while some stay there taking space unnecessarily. People also tend to subscribe to a lot of newsletters due to FOMO and might end up not reading them. Also, certain emails might be useless after some time but still would be lying idle in one's account. All of these small things taken for granted will result in catastrophic things. 

 So, why do these harmless emails have such devastating effects? For starters, the devices you use have a carbon footprint they leave behind when they are produced. The electricity used to power these devices has a carbon footprint as well. The internet service providers need power as well. The servers used to store and enable the exchange of emails to have a carbon footprint. You can see where this is going. All the components required for sending an email have a carbon footprint. This doesn't mean emails are bad or that they aren't to be used. The word sustainability gets thrown around easily these days but being sustainable in simple things will help make a difference hugely. 

The simple picture above shows how different emails have lasting effects on the environment. There are simple things that can be done to reduce these adverse effects on the environment. 

Unsubscribe from unnecessary email updates/newsletters

Reduce the number of email addresses

Reduce the size of attachments or use links to documents/images while sending them

Backup essential emails only and delete all the others

The photo above is an example of the sad state of a lot of email accounts. These many mails lying idle are just a bane to the environment and the people in it. I would recommend that one spends a few hours every weekend and follow the steps mentioned above to sort out unnecessary emails and make sure the state of one's email account does not unnecessarily cause harm for others. Time is crunch for everyone but this simple regimen will ensure to some extent reduce the unwanted pollution that is being caused. The more the number of people following this the higher the chances of things getting better at scale.

P.C: BBC, OSXDaily

BBC Article (A good article to sum up how one's internet habits are not as clean as it is thought to be)