Following our last week’s article, we asked ourselves and we asked you another question regarding the carbon dioxide footprint of new technology and our daily actions:
Which is greener – a digital photo frame or a paper photo album?
Every special event, every happy or less happy moment is marked in our minds more or less, depending on the occasion. But try to remember what dress you wore at your cousin’s wedding, so you don’t dress the same way at her baby’s christening… It all becomes a bit foggy now, doesn’t it? In order to prevent such a fashion disaster like this, or just to genuinely smile on reminiscing beautiful memories from your own wedding, you come down to photos. They enrich our lives with beautiful moments, that otherwise would have stayed in the shadow of oblivion.
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We all have photo albums at home, with tons of photos from weddings, birthdays or parties. For example, an average wedding will results in hundreds of photos, although usually only the best of them are selected and printed. The exact number varies greatly from photographer to photographer, depending on their skill and speed, but we can easily imagine ending up with over 1000 raw photos after a whole day of shooting (this figure refers to digital photography, not film). From these, only the best ones are selected, edited and printed and you would end up with around 100 images (more or less depending on how big the final album is).
So, what is the carbon footprint of a 100 photos?
It all depends if the photos are printed at a professional shop or if you print them yourself (it can get up to 4 times cheaper!). Traditional photo processing is very water-intensive, it uses caustic chemicals, and it can release silver into the environment. If you use a color laser printer, or even an inkjet printer and special photo paper, you can also obtain good images at a lower cost for the environment, although the quality is not as good as professional printed photos. According to Yahoo Green, even if laser printers are more expensive than inkjet printers, you also get fewer printed pages per cartridge with an inkjet than you do pages per toner cartridge for a laser printer and the cost-per-page is less for a laser printer. Also, they say that inkjet-printed paper is almost impossible to recycle. Keeping that in mind, it seems obvious that you are better off printing your images on a laser printer.
Other article written by Brian Nadel, makes an interesting analysis regarding the energy cost of a printed photo, saying that printing 10 individual photos uses 0.2 kilowatt hour of electricity, so 100 sheets would consume 2 kilowatt hours of juice. Of course, the number can vary depending on how much electricity your printer consumes, but if we use it as a reference and consider printing a photo per page, our 100 photos for the wedding album will release around 0.91 kg of carbon dioxide only for printing. Keep in mind that this doesn’t take into account the carbon footprint of the actual album, which will add more to this figure.
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On the other side, let’s suppose that instead of a classic photo album, you want to use a digital photo frame to display the 100 photos. Digital photo frames are more expensive than photo albums you print yourself, but you can use them to display the images in different ways, with music and transitions. Another disadvantage is that they need electricity to function, so they are not environmentally sensitive. An 8-inch frame consumes 7 watts or 61.3 kilowatt hours of power over a year, according to our Kill-A-Watt testing over a short period of time (says tomsguide.com ), the equivalent of about 27.58 kg of carbon dioxide. Even if nobody is watching, a digital photo frame will need electricity to power it. So far, we didn’t consider the footprint of making a digital photo frame and how are these recycled, but it is clear that classical photo albums or photo frames are more environmental friendly.
After an album is made it has less impact on the environment and lasts for a longer period of time (I am sure that your grandparents still have their wedding photo album, while you lost some great pictures from you holiday last year by mistakenly erasing them from your computer.) Considering the fact that your photo stack increases constantly over the years, you might end up with a bulk of photo albums that, although look very nice in your livingroom and preserve your photos, are heavy to use and it’s even harder to remember what photos are in which album.
However, although a digital frame might cost a bit when purchased, in comparison to the costs of printing all the photos every time you make them, and the fact that the photo paper is not recyclable, it’s a trifle.
Printed photos for most people might be more environmentally sound and have a somewhat smaller carbon footprint. That said, there is much that the photographer can do to improve his or her impact – use more environmentally-friendly chemicals (they do exist), being careful of water use and reusing chemicals where possible. Disposal of used chemicals must be done safely and in accordance to local laws.
Overall, digital photo frames may consume energy over and over again, but this adds up to 61.3 KWH/year, which you can save in a matter of months if you remember turn switch the light bulb off every time you exit a room.
- If you want to watch the same 10 or 100 photos again and again for a long period of time, you shouldn’t even think of a digital photo frame because it consumes energy for no good reason.
- But if you like to constantly change the photos around you, you might consider a digital frame, as it’s costs and CO2 emissions cushion.
