Is green IT an antidote to e-waste problems?

Man’s negative impact on the environment due to various activities has raised serious concerns with numerous campaigns rising to protect the environment. Computer waste also contributes to damaging not only the environment, but has serious consequences on human health resulting from pollution of the air, water and soil which are part of the ecosystem. With E-waste causing such problems and a challenge to developing nations which have been dumping grounds, the need to adopt green information technology (IT) is becoming more evident. In this paper, we recommend adoption of green IT education by schools, governments, organisations producing or shipping IT products and individuals consuming these technologies to work together in adopting green IT to reduce E-waste accumulation and hence eliminate the environmental and health implications of E-waste