March 15th
Digital Cleanup Day
Growing concerns about energy consumption in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and CO2 pollution caused by wasteful digital practices led Let's Do It World to launch the first global digital clean-up campaign in 2020, which has been held annually in March since then.
In the digital world, just like in the environment, there is a huge amount of waste. Unnecessary emails, files, duplicates of photos and videos are all digital waste. This waste creates digital pollution, which continues to consume energy even when we forget about it. Every year, the internet and its supporting systems produce 900 million tons of CO2, which is more than the annual production of the entire Germany.
In 2022, people and organizations in 133 countries participated in digital cleanup from March 20th to April 22nd. A total of 2,733,264 GB of data was deleted and 683 tons of CO2 emissions were prevented. For example, this amount of CO2 production is equivalent to 2,732 one-hour flights or 56 million km by car. It is also equivalent to 114 million hours of mobile phone calls. The most active countries were France, Belgium, and Taiwan.
Join this year's Digital Cleanup Day on March 18th, 2023. You can sign up for the campaign and learn more about digital waste at www.digitalcleanupday.org.
