Games can't save the world, but they can slow its demise'

September 30th, 2012, 21:27 Posted By: wraggster

Consoles are power-sucking energy hogs leeching the life force from the very planet upon which we make our home, and every generation demands more power than the last. The slim versions of the PS3 and 360 use less power than the heavyweight originals, but just wait until the next generation comes and your 720 needs to be powered by an artificial black hole.
But there's one thing we're getting right, environmentally speaking. Games consoles have never been packaged as creatively and as responsibly as they are today. Boring? Nope. Get ready for some science.
The 360, Wii, and PS3 all ship packaged in layers of cardboard rather than the expanded polystyrene which filled the boxes of consoles from previous generations. Polystyrene was the packing material of choice for most of the eighties and nineties - the SNES was packaged in a colossal slab of the stuff and even NES games had an EPS block in the box to make the package look bigger and sexier on the shelf.
<figure style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 620px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-transform: none; line-height: 21px; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; clear: both; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; word-spacing: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; float: none; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; orphans: 2; widows: 2; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="article-image article-image-alt article-image-620"><figcaption style="font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 10px; border: 0px currentColor; left: 0px; bottom: 0px; color: rgb(238, 238, 238); vertical-align: baseline; display: block; position: absolute; max-width: 50%; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039);">Where beige '90s electronics go to die.</figcaption></figure>What most people know as polystyrene is in fact 'expanded polystyrene' - the white, air-filled foam. Regular polystyrene is a dense plastic used in everything from yoghurt pots to jewel cases. It bears a resin ID code of 6; it's a single polymer plastic and can be recycled in a profitable manner. Recycling, remember, is a business and recyling facilities need to turn their collected materials into money if they're to keep recycling and save the entire bloody world.Expanded polystyrene isn't nearly so easy to recycle. It's the same single polymer plastic but is ninety-eight percent air. Recycled plastics are bought and reused, often by Chinese manufacturers. But if you send expanded polystyrene uncompressed you're going to spend a few hundred pounds on fuel for a few pennies back on the weight.
EPS is usually compacted to one fortieth its original size using purpose-built equipment as locally as is possible. It gets transported to a recycling facility, chopped, turned into a liquid glop, and then made into dense pellets that can be shipped in bulk. Brilliant.
[h=3]RECYCLING POINT[/h]Well, brilliant for companies dealing with massive amounts of the stuff, but not so brilliant for consumers. While it's possible to recycle polystyrene at several locations in the UK, no local authority collects EPS in their doorstop collections. So EPS used to package consumer goods usually ends up in a landfill where it'll go about its business of outlasting everyone you'll ever love.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ow-its-demise/

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