Despite Sony's attempts to reduce the impact its console has on the environment, new research has revealed that the PS4's effect on the planet packs a punch.
The world is being urged to recycle, use renewable energy, and basically cut down on waste before it's too late. The human race has damaged the planet, perhaps to a point that we can't come back from, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Change needs to start with the world's biggest companies as they're the ones with the biggest carbon footprints.
That effort has to extend to the video game industry too. Sony has already committed to reducing its carbon footprint. The tech giant has signed up to the UN-back initiative Playing for the Planet and has pledged to have zero environmental footprint by 2050. However, The Verge reports that Sony's use of unrecycled plastic has actually gone up by 2.4% since 2013.
This was just one of the troubling stats discovered by The Verge's Lewis Gordon. He took a PS4 apart and with the know-how of various experts, discovered how much of an impact every single piece of the console has on the environment. From its hard plastic shell to the tin and gold used on the microchip deep within it. All of it has an impact on the planet and when added together, it reveals a pretty scary figure.
Once all of the math was over and done with, and every effect from every element of a PS4 was added together, it was estimated that the manufacturing process creates roughly 89 kilograms of carbon dioxide per PS4. Since more than 100 million of them have been made and sold over the past six years, that all adds up to a hell of a lot of damage.
That figure doesn't even take into account the energy used once the PS4 is sitting in an ower's home being used every day. Further research discovered that a PS4 bought six years ago and used one hour per day will have caused a further 82.2 kilograms of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere. When all is said and done, consoles have a pretty big negative effect on the planet, and Sony has a big job on its hands to try and lessen that effect.
Source: The Verge