Like every year, the World Cleanup Day of our planet (World Cleanup Day, in the original version) is accompanied by its digital counterpart. This March 18 is therefore ALSO Digital Cleanup Day, formerly Cyber World Cleanup Day. An event during which the organizers and partners insist on two behaviors to adopt for a more virtuous approach to tech: cleaning up your data and giving a second life to your digital equipment.
“After the success of the first three editions carried by France, the Cyber World CleanUp Day becomes a global program, changes its name and graphic identity in 2023 to become the Digital Cleanup Day”explain the organizers, who add: “Since 2020, we have worked hard to raise public awareness of the challenges of digital pollution and the digital carbon footprint. We have organized thousands of Cyber Cleanups and raised awareness of hundreds of thousands of people through three first editions of the project”.
Buy less, make it last
Their objectives are multiple: in a friendly and positive climate, they hope to bring together at least 3.5 million people to convey educational messages around data cleaning and the collection of digital equipment. To do this, it will be a question of raising awareness as much as possible about the growing environmental footprint of digital technology, in a market where the manufacture of a new device represents 70% of its ecological footprint.
As we know, preserving the planet from a digital point of view means above all “make the devices last as long as possible”, recycle them, give them a second or even a third life, etc. Because if adopting more sober behaviors is a necessity, at different levels, no effort will be as decisive as preventing the manufacture of a smartphone or an additional television. The most ecological device is the one you already have, and if there is one habit to break, it is that of systematically letting yourself be caught up in the novelty, in the face of manufacturers who do everything to titillate our technophile fiber.
From this point of view, the message conveyed by the Digital Cleanup Day is therefore perfectly virtuous. And if, in addition, he can advocate for less data consumption, that’s a significant plus.
