by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Those chargers and those speakers that you have left on while not being used, that light on in the other room and in the hall, those printers and other machines on standby all draw power. While they look harmless enough, they are sucking on your household power supply and are costing you money and are creating untold tonnes of C02. Plug Out!
In some places you really have to take out the plugs; such as in most of the rest of the EU and in the USA, but in Britain we are lucky, we just need to turn the sockets off. I did say sockets not socks.
Your chargers do not have to be left on when your cell phone, or whatever else has been charged. But as long as they are plugged in, the chargers I mean, into the mains, they draw power, and some the same amount as when they are actually doing their job of charging. There are some chargers that you do not have to worry about – the so-called smart chargers – but as you may not know which is a smart one and which not take the safe route... Plug Out!
Machines, of whatever kind, suck power. Whether we are using them, have left them on in the background, or are just making them kick their heels on standby, they devour power and lot's of it and creating all this energy generates tonnes and tonnes of harmful CO2 and costs you a packet too.
Do you really have to watch DVD box sets until the wee hours or playing your Wii for hours and hours or sleeping with a Blackberry under your pillow? Do you really have to be that “plugged in”?
Give yourself and the Planet a break once every so often and unplug to go analog and live in the real world – says he who spend most of his time working away on the computer, I know.
Put that Kindle or whatever E-book Reader away and pick up a real book. In fact, while E-books are great, don't bother with an E-book Reader and get the books in PDF and use your computer or – dare I say it – print out on your printer if you want to curl up with it in a chair. Print on old pages that have been sued one side only and you do a good dead as well.
However, virtual interaction on Facebook or sending SMS messages does not replace and cannot replace real world interactions with people though it has come so far by now, it would seem, from what I have observed, that groups of kids sitting on a park bench are sending each other SMS messages rather than talking to each other.
Come one, let's get back to reality and plug out every now and then and especially when we are not using the things. Pull their plugs and kill those phantom power suckers. Plug Out!
© 2011
