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Beyond being a huge pain in the inbox of online users everywhere, a new study has revealed that the ever-increasing spread of e-mail Spam is also proving to be hugely detrimental to the environment.
New McAfee Spam report reveals serious ecological damage. Image: dok1/Flickr.
Moreover, the new ‘Carbon Footprint of e-mail Spam Report’ has revealed that around 62 trillion Spam e-mails are sent across the Internet every year, equating to the production of some 33 billion kilowatt hours of wasted energy – which the report claims is enough to provide electricity for more than 2.4 million U.S. homes and equals the emissions created by 3.1 million cars.
In terms of total carbon emissions attributed to the energy wastage, the study outlines that Spam is responsible for producing 17 million tonnes of damaging CO2, with approximately 80 percent of that amount created by e-mail users searching through, filtering, and deleting Spam from their accounts.
The study, which was conducted by leading anti-Virus vendor McAfee and climate experts from ICF International, also concluded that an individual business user creates around 131kg of e-mail CO2 each year, with Spam responsible for almost 30kg of that figure.
“As the world faces the growing problem of climate change, this study highlights that spam has an immense financial, personal and environmental impact,” commented Jeff Green, senior vice president at McAfee, in a BBC report.
When it comes to working to reduce Spam-related CO2, the study notes that simple widespread purchase and usage of diligent Spam filters would likely cut Spam rates by some 75 percent, which is the ecological equivalent of removing more than two million cars from the road.
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