Want to take action to Clean Up your data and give your digital equipment a second life ? Companies, citizens, schools, communities, associations … Join the movement !
The Cyber World CleanUp Day
The Cyber World CleanUp is a continuous operation of awareness-raising about the environmental footprint of digital technology through action, which started in January 2022 and will take place till March 19th, 2022. After that date, the efforts will be summed up to get a complete picture of the CleanUps.
The objective is to generate awareness by inviting individuals and organisations to take concrete action by cleaning up their data and/or giving a second life to all their digital equipment that is sleeping in drawers.
Individuals, schools, local authorities, companies and associations, join the movement !
👉Visit the Cyber World Clean Up Website
The purpose of the Cyber World CleanUp Day
While digital technology is a source of great progress, its acceleration is a cause for concern. Nowadays, digital technology is responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is estimated that by 2025 it could account for 8% of human-made GHG emissions. Impacts are to be considered at all stages of the life cycle of a device (from the extraction of raw materials to the end of the equipment’s life).
The massive storage of data on our digital equipment contributes to reducing its lifespan and therefore to producing more and more new equipment. Taking care of our digital equipment helps to limit the rate of renewal, thus reducing the amount of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Furthermore, being aware of the number of files stored on our computers, smartphones or servers, makes us aware of the importance of learning to sort and organise our data.
The Cyber World CleanUp Day therefore focuses on two major actions. On the one hand, data cleaning and on the other hand, the second life of equipment. Through the guides that we provide to participants, we bring the keys to understand these issues and take action.
What is data pollution ?
There are 4.5 billion digital users in the world, and their uses are becoming more and more widespread and sustained. Every minute, we perform 3.8 million searches on the Internet, send 41.6 million messages, watch 700,000 hours of Netflix streaming, store files and archive photos on our devices or in our clouds.
All these uses contribute to the creation of data and the consumption of energy. Indeed, computers, networks, boxes, data centres, routers… all this equipment requires significant resources to be produced and to run.
IDC’s Global StorageSphere study estimates that 98% of the data created or replicated each year is “analysed in real time or consumed without ever being saved for future reference”. Despite this, in 2018, over 700 exabytes of storage capacity was added, all media/formats combined (HDD, SSD, NVM-flash/other, optical or even tape storage).
How much data is really useful ? How much data is duplicated ? How much could be deleted ?
What about waste from electrical and electronic equipment ?
According to a UN report, the world’s population generated 53.6 million tonnes of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in 2019. This is 28% more than in 2014.
70% of it feeds an international export trade of this waste with dangerous components to countries in Africa or South-East Asia. They end up in open-air dumps where adults and children try to survive by processing our end-of-life electrical and electronic waste, between water, soil pollution and air toxicity.
How can we take care of our equipment ? How to give them a second life? How to recycle them ?
Co-sponsoring associations
The World Cleanup Day is a global movement, launched by the non-profit Let’s Do It Foundation, which aims to fight litter pollution through citizen clean-ups. Let’s Do It! World is an accredited member of the United Nations Environment Programme. For the past few years, all national clean-ups have taken place on the same date, the third weekend of September.
Co-sponsored by World Cleanup Day РFrance (WCD) and the French Institut du Num̩rique Responsable (INR), each association bringing its own expertise to the program, the Cyber World CleanUp Day (CyberWCUD) was launched in 2020. The Belgian and Swiss Institutes for Sustainable IT extend the reach of the CyberWCUD for this 3rd edition !
Following the French initiative launched a couple of years ago, the World CleanUp Day launched for 2022 an international equivalent to the Cyber World CleanUp Day under the name Digital Clean Up Day – unfortunately just too late to merge them for 2022. We aim to regroup them under the same name as of next year.
Create your own CleanUp
How to participate ?
You can become Ambassador, Organiser or Participant. Each person can play a different role, depending on his or her wishes.
Your event can be private or public, i.e. open to all or only reserved for the employees of an organising company for example.