ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

In the eighties it was believed that the new technological resources of information would provoke a decrease in the use of paper or even a thorough extintion of this stationery. However, an opposite effect to the expected one was noticed, the consumption of paper increased and so the environmental problems linked to paper and cellulose became present. This work discusses the environmental impact which the information technology has been causing due to the increase in the paper use, despite the efforts which have been made for the processes to be developed in a non-depending-on-paper forms. Internet has radically been changing the way of working and making businesses and, doubtlessly, the electronic magazines/papers and the e-books avoid the need of paper printing, but, on the other hand, the amount of information generated has been being multiplied in the last years and the printing culture remains in people´s minds, and the idea that a certain document just exits when it is physically touchable still prevails.