Supersized TVs and electronics.

• Author: McRandle, Paul W.
• Position: GREEN GUIDANCE - Television

The world's consumers own about 1.7 billion television sets--one for every four people--and 150 million new ones are added each year. Yet while in the poorest countries there is only one TV per dozen people, the average U.S. household has 2.4. As for personal computers, 1 billion had been sold by 2002, and annual sales have reached 130 million, with an old computer discarded for each new one purchased. Add in DVD players and other electronic devices, and you have a major increase in energy consumption, as well as toxic materials bound eventually for landfills.

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Bigger-screen televisions, particularly plasma screens, can devour over four times the power of an older cathode ray tube set. Some plasma TVs eat up more energy annually than a refrigerator (one Panasonic set used 849 kilowatt hours/year, versus 670 kwh/year or less for many fridges). In the United States, TV-related energy use is predicted to rise 50 percent by 2009. In the United Kingdom, it's estimated that an additional six megawatts of power may be needed at peak hours to handle the new TVs.

Toxic components, including flame retardants known as deca-brominated diphenyl ethers (deca-BDEs), can be released from TV and computer cases and then inhaled or ingested. These chemicals accumulate in breast milk and may affect babies' developing brains. In addition, heavy metals like neurotoxic lead and mercury, as well as carcinogenic chromium and cadmium, can leach into the environment when the devices end up in landfills or are disassembled.

Happily, the European Union's "restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment" directive came into force in July 2006, and China recently adopted a similar law. Many electronics manufacturers are choosing to comply on a global scale. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has integrated the EU standards into its new green procurement guidelines for computers.

More DVD players and video games also mean more hours in front of the tube: Americans now spend 16 percent more time watching TV than they did in the 1980s, and sedentary lifestyles are contributing to rising obesity worldwide. Beyond that, psychologists increasingly agree that violent imagery in movies and video games spurs aggressive behavior in children and reduces cooperation. In children up to age three, TV watching can provoke long-term attention deficits.

Some tips for greening the electronic...