Experts Urge Digital Decluttering as 229kg Online Carbon Footprint and AI Data Risks Grow
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Oct 16
Experts Urge Digital Decluttering as 229kg Online Carbon Footprint and AI Data Risks Grow
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 16
Summary
Australians spend about 40% of waking hours online, generating an estimated 229kg of carbon emissions per person, while experts say AI tools use orders of magnitude more energy than traditional computing.
Libby Sadler and Andrew Cullen say trimming emails, unused apps, duplicate photos and scattered cloud storage can cut digital waste, save time and reduce the mental drag of disorganized devices.
IDC found the average employee loses more than two hours a week searching for files, and experts recommend small recurring cleanups rather than one overwhelming purge.
Cullen said old emails, dormant social accounts and archived photos can still hold valuable personal data for AI companies or others, making deletion and limiting unnecessary AI use a privacy step as well as an environmental one.
The scale of stored data is vast—Google Photos holds more than 9 trillion images, while Dropbox made US$2.5 billion from 18 million customers in 2025—underscoring the growing financial and infrastructure cost of keeping digital clutter indefinitely.