environmental impact

I read recently a blog post proclaiming the photographer's environmental credentials essentially because they shot digital. The argument (which we've all heard before) was based largely on chemical and water usage. It got me thinking...

I would have thought, the total carbon footprint of most analogue users would be significantly less than most digital photographers. For starters, we generally use cameras for a longer period of time (surely a new DSLR every 2 years is significant), often don't require as much power to run our equipment (manual cameras for example). Of course you could extrapolate it out to also needing less computer power, storage etc.

I'd be really interested in other people's thoughts. Is it something ethically you think about? I know when I have a run of doing a lot of developing at home, I do think of the chemicals I use and the amount of water I go through... I still don't think it it's that significant considering the amount I shoot. I perhaps do a three-roll tank every 2-3 weeks.

They are?
... they have environmental credentials?
You don't say!? An idle boast, or have they got more solid, convincing facts than just saying it's all due to shooting digital? Do they drive a diesel-bleching V8 to prove their point, hmm? What they gloat about with digital no doubt they fail abysmally in many other areas that are conveniently ignored e.g. the amount of TV they watch, running the car/refuelling, routine use of electricity... .

Any manufacturing of any camera and lens etc would have an environmental (carbon) footprint — the extraction of raw materials through mining should not be forgotten (think where the gold stuff comes from coating terminals, cadmium, nickel etc.). In terms of something else though — film production and post-shoot (developing), this would have a big carbon footprint too (hot water, gas, electricity) then disposal of toxic chemicals (especially true with Ilfochrome printing). Ethically, we can only continue to monitor our impact on the environment in what is an ever increasingly multi-industry-intensive vocation. No escaping from the reality of it all, not even for the digiwits.

I recommend going to Dead Link Removed then click on "China" and then "Recycling" to see some of what happens to e-waste that doesn't go into landfills here, that is to say, the stuff we think we are recycling. Tons of it end up in China to be dismantled and sorted by the most primitive and hazardous means. This is just disposal, not manufacture of electronics, which is also not the most environmentally friendly of businesses.

The semiconductor industry is certainly not easy on the environment, and that's of course where digital cameras come from. In terms of environmentally damaging waste, computers and related equipment is a particular concern, when you consider the rate at which people "upgrade" their hardware. Obsoleted hardware contains all manner of materials such as arsenic, and much like "energy efficient" fluorescent bulbs, there are almost no regulations requiring companies to recover waste from products once their lifetime is finished. The problem is that some of these products are so complex that it'd cost a fortune to disassemble them properly. So off they go to the landfill, arsenic and mercury and all.

This is not to say that film photographers have been easy on the environment either; we recently had a thread on the amount of silver released into the environment by the film industry. The net amount is in steep decline because the number of minilabs is in steep decline, but if you ask how much waste is generated per active person, that is a good deal of waste and we do need to be responsible about it.

The part of the environmental impact derived from prints and overall power consumption is probably roughly a draw.

a year ago august i made a poll regarding spent fixer and what people do with it
59% said they put it down the drain ...

I have many, many cameras (ask my wife). None of them are younger than I am. So the way I see it, the environmental impact of my photography hobby has been zero.

I have two explanations:

I use water. It goes down the drain. The sewage facilities purify it, and it flows into the ocean. Then it evaporates and rains down again into rivers and reservoirs and I use it again. Is this a problem?

Global warming doesn't exist.

tiberiustibz said:

I have two explanations:

I use water. It goes down the drain. The sewage facilities purify it, and it flows into the ocean. Then it evaporates and rains down again into rivers and reservoirs and I use it again. Is this a problem?

Global warming doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

Oh if only it was that simple ;-)

tiberiustibz said:

I have two explanations:

I use water. It goes down the drain. The sewage facilities purify it, and it flows into the ocean. Then it evaporates and rains down again into rivers and reservoirs and I use it again. Is this a problem?

Global warming doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

you might want to speak with municipal authorities regarding dumping your photo chemistry down your drain.
in boston, and its suburbs, it is NOT legal.


speak with a native american who has knowledge of their oral tradition.
the coastline was 50+ feet out ...
the seas have been rising and the globe has been warming.

Here we go

jnanian said:

you might want to speak with municipal authorities regarding dumping your photo chemistry down your drain.
in boston, and its suburbs, it is NOT legal.


speak with a native american who has knowledge of their oral tradition.
the coastline was 50+ feet out ...
the seas have been rising and the globe has been warming.

Click to expand...

No, you see, I in particular have a septic system

a few thousand years ago my house would have been covered with a mile of ice...

tiberiustibz said:

No, you see, I in particular have a septic system

a few thousand years ago my house would have been covered with a mile of ice...

Click to expand...

nicholas -

even though your parents are on a septic system, they still have to follow local, state
and federal laws. in boston and its suburbs it is illegal to dump fixer down your drain.
if you don't believe me i can give you the name of someone to call ...

----

an elder from a tribe where i am ( an hour away from you ) told me that
we were not covered by ice a few thousand years ago, but something completely different.
i think i believe him ...

jnanian said:

nicholas -

even though your parents are on a septic system, they still have to follow local, state
and federal laws. in boston and its suburbs it is illegal to dump fixer down your drain.
if you don't believe me i can give you the name of someone to call ...

----

an elder from a tribe where i am ( an hour away from you ) told me that
we were not covered by ice a few thousand years ago, but something completely different.
i think i believe him ...

Click to expand...

I live 30 minutes outside of boston. I don't doubt it's illegal. We're giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants, after all.

There was an ice age 10,000 years ago which covered the majority of new england with ice IIRC.

I feel like this is unproductive for some reason.

Back to the point ;-) Do you think (just for the fun of it OK!) - that either digital or analogue (on average) results in a smaller carbon footprint? I know there are lots of variables, but what do you think overall? I guess it would be pretty close, but IMO I still think the 'average' analogue photographer would have a smaller footprint, mainly due to less manufacturing with gear.

tiberiustibz said:

I live 30 minutes outside of boston. I don't doubt it's illegal. We're giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants, after all.

There was an ice age 10,000 years ago which covered the majority of new england with ice IIRC.

I feel like this is unproductive for some reason.

Click to expand...

if it is unproductive to speak about what you do with
your photochemicals / YOUR impact on the environment
or "global warming is bunk" which is what you said,
maybe .. you shouldn't have mentioned it ... or be so SMUG
about your illegal dumping

you might want to research your "ice age"
native americans have been in the region for more than 30,000 years ...

if you want to learn about boston or 30 minutes outside of boston,
speak with someone who had ancestors there before
the pilgrams landed ... you might learn something ...

Some people will sit in a coffee shop pontificating about how poorly other people treat the environment without even stopping to think about their own transgressions could not even fathom the idea that coffee is probably one of the most environmentally damaging cash crops ever planted by humans. Then they'll take their "To Go" cup, hop into their SUV and drive back to their air conditioned "McMansions" and never even consider that, for all the environmental damage they just did today, 10 people could have poured 10 gallons of used photo chemicals directly into the ocean.

Except for certain things like special toners and similar stuff, I truly have a hard time believing that a well-functioning, properly maintained municipal sewerage treatment plant could not neutralize virtually any chemicals that your average amateur photographer would dump down the drain.

I think that we need to make a distinction between people who claim to be "environmentalists" and true "conservationists" such that environmentalists are seen as nothing more than bunny hugging hippies who pretend to run around the forest singing Kumbaya and conservationists are people who make judicious and frugal use of resoruces to further human needs without destroying too much of the natural environment.

Our world-class sewer treatment facility does not mind developers or stop bath -- or even fixers once the silver is removed. I would be far more concerned about every-day household cleaners than I would be of photo developers, stop baths and fixers.

Fortunately, my prints require none of the above -- but the Ammonium dichromate is a different story (0.1 to 0.4 grams per 8x10... about 6 to 8 prints a month.)

My footprint is too big -- I drive too much. Hoping to do 80% of my commuting to work by bicycle (20 miles round trip) starting in a couple weeks. But I still get on the road -- driving 400 miles to Yosemite this week-end (giving a workshop there), and a trip to Spokane this summer...and probably a trip or two down to the SF Bay Area (having a show in Hayward soon).

I guess that just the essential needs of being alive produce a "carbon footprint".

Even the act of using a PC to read and post here on APUG uses electricity and depreciates the computer which, however careful we are, will then eventually wear out and need replacing.

Yes -- but I am using the computer at my workplace

Vaughn said:

Yes -- but I am using the computer at my workplace

Click to expand...

So am I!

(Doesn't alter my point on environmental impact, though. And, as it's my own business, I still have to dip into my own wallet when anything needs replacing. ).

Thanks everyone - so it's a draw then... we're all terrible ;-) And I thought I could take the moral high ground because I use cameras with no batteries!!

mesh said:

Thanks everyone - so it's a draw then... we're all terrible ;-)

Click to expand...

Yes, we are all terrible!

Except for, probably, algae, every living thing on the planet CONSUMES another living thing for its survival. Algae uses sunlight. Fish eat the algae. Bigger fish eat the smaller fish. Animals eat other animals. Humans eat the fish and the animals and the plants too. We all use oxygen and nutrients from the environment. Every living thing consumes something from the environment to live. Then we all die. And when we die, we rot and produce toxic bacteria and other noxious compounds.

So, just the act of being alive is a drain on the environment. And, if we all suddenly decided to commit suicide we would STILL be putting a strain on the environment for years and years after we are gone.

The whole idea of preserving the environment is an exercise in futility. Just the fact that the environment exists necessitates that it must come to some harm.

In the end, we are all doomed. The answer is to just live well, consider your actions but don't worry about the small details.

Except, Randy I have kids (another dent, or three, in the environment, I know), so I feel a little more obligated to be an example and also try to pass on a relative healthy planet to them.

And perhaps "preserving the environment" is not quite the best way to put it -- maintaining a healthy environment is a more accurate way to state it.

Vaughn

Yes. Live well and consider your actions.

I think we should think of the environment like most people think of their bank account.
We need to spend money in order to live comfortably in today's society but, at the same time, we don't blow all our cash at one time and hope we'll have more some day. Just the same goes for the environment. In order to live, we need to cut down a few trees so that we can build houses but we should not cut down entire forests to build subdivisions full of "McMansions" an strip malls then wonder why we don't have any forests later on.

I think it is possible to live frugally yet still be comfortable. That means we should not waste energy and do things like recycle and reduce our use of things that overtax our environment.

On the other hand, things that people THINK are good for the environment are anything but. Some people think it's better to use paper instead of plastic but I think it's a false economy. We cut down trees which, as you know, sequester pollution using gasoline-burning machines and take them to paper mills which create more pollution and haul the resulting product around in diesel powered trucks. Why is that better than simply pumping petroleum though a pipe? I'm not saying one is better than the other. I am saying that we should look at the spectrum of things and find a balance between extremes.

What about coffee? I mentioned it before. Coffee is, I believe, one of the most environmentally unfriendly cash crops we have growing today. Farmers in Sumatra are chopping down the forest to plant coffee, usually via slash-and-burn agriculture. They destroy the natural habitats of many animals including the orangutan and the rhino. Because people in America and Europe will pay $5.00 or €3.70 for a cup of coffee at a place like Starbucks, poor subsistence farmers are encouraged to ravage their land just to cash in on the coffee boom.

The point here is not to quibble about how many trees we cut down or what the price of coffee is. The point is to show the inconsistencies in the way people think about the environment. Like I said, they'll sit in coffee shops and speak about how poorly people treat the environment then they'll hop in their SUV and drive down the block to get home when they could, very well, have walked the distance.

I agree with others in that digital photography is nothing more than a trade-off, environmentally speaking, with real photography. Six of one and half a dozen of another, as they say. BOTH technologies use the environment in different ways. It is silly to think that one is better than the other in some nit-picking way because BOTH have negative consequences.

I think it is better for many people to make small changes in the way they use energy or otherwise consume the environment than it is for a few people to make sweeping changes. It is just the way that many people should make small changes in their family budgets to conserve their money instead of the government dictating sweeping changes which only apply to only the select few in order to solve our nationwide economic troubles.

Again, consider the environment the way we consider our bank accounts. Use it. Manage it and take care of it. Some day we might just have more of it than we started out with, in the first place.

One aspect I continuously miss in these discussions, is the environmental impact of the production of inks for digital printing. I have no real knowledge of what is in them, but I could well see a major impact in terms of extraction and mining for them as well... not all pigments are simple organic molecule products of the chemical industry and oil. Far from it. Many of the light fast stable pigments in oil paints, use metals as well, that need mining...

How that compares to silver mining, I don't know...

Marco