The physical trash can that deletes your emails to alert you to an unknown problem: digital pollution

The media constantly talk about pollution in cities, pollution of the seas, and other problems. But digital pollution is always left out of the debates.

Soixante Circuits is a French technology company that has created IRL Trash Can, a physical trash can that deletes the emails from your mobile trash. Its aim is to bring to light an invisible issue: the digital pollution.

We know very well the pollution produced by cars, ships, factories, livestock, but do you know what pollution is? digital pollution? It pollutes as much as air traffic, and emits 4% of greenhouse gaseswhich favor climate change.

Digital pollution is the contamination produced by emails, documents or files that we have stored on servers, and that we do not use.

Digital pollution: the great unknown

Stop to think for a moment the emails and documents that you do not need, that are stored in your Gmail account. In forgotten photos, videos, and other content from your Google Drive account.

These files are stored on Google servers, and to keep them there, accessible to you even if you are not going to use them in life, the servers consume electrical energy, which often come from polluting sources. These servers generate heat, and require expensive air conditioning systems to maintain, which also consume energy.

If we multiply by the billions of users who have forgotten emails, lost photos and unemptied bins, it is easy to see the problem. This unnecessary energy expenditure is considered digital pollution, and generates a great environmental impactequivalent to that of all air traffic.

To give visibility to the issue, the French company Soixante Circuits has created IRL Trash Can, a physical trash can that is a clone of the email trash on your mobile. Its function is delete the emails you have in your digital trash.

Has an NFC readerand when someone goes through the bin and places their mobile on the reader, sand empty your trashhelping to reduce the digital pollution.

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For Boris Siegentgaler, founder of Infomaniak, storing an email for a year consumes up to 0.0096 wh. According to ADEME, 500 grams of CO2 are released per kWh. Therefore, storing an email for 1 year emits up to 0.005 grams of CO2.

The trash can IRL Trashcan it can erase up to 600 emails per minute, that is, 3g of CO2 per minute. Is or are 4.3 kilos of CO2 per daythe equivalent of the pollution generated manufacture 432 plastic bags.

A compact car emits up to 180 g of CO2 per km, so continuous use of this bin would reduce pollution equivalent to 24 km of travel by car.

Is physical trash can that deletes emails from the mobile trash can is a very clever invention to demonstrate the relationship between digital pollutionwhich is invisible because the servers are outside the cities, and the actual pollution.