Environmental Effects in the Digital Revolution

Since it is Blog Action Day (probably tomorrow for most of the world), and the theme is Environmental Concerns, I began to think how much of a difference changing over to Digital over Film in production would affect the environment. Although I doubt it would make much of a change during the Pre- and Post- stages of production, Digital may actually come out surprisingly as being more green and eco-friendly than Film.

There are two main factors that I can think of - the first being the creation and processing of film as opposed to digital storage and acquisition, and secondly the single use reality of film as opposed to reusable digital storage media.

I imagine that the millions upon millions of miles of film used around the world would take their toll in both its creation and processing. The film making process involves using heavy metals such as silver and nitro cellulose. Getting the film processed and developed involves using many chemicals to retrieve the pictures from the medium. Although the film creation and development methods have increased in efficiency and safety over the years, a lot of chemicals and heavy metals are still unfortunately required. Compared with digital, the only environmental cost is the initial creation of the storage devices, which may include gold and some other metals and plastics. Once the storage device is created, there is no environmental cost during its use.

The other main advantage to digital is the ability to reuse digital storage devices many times, compared with the single use function of film. This, combined with no processing costs involved with digital acquisition (the media is simply downloaded onto the required editing system or archival system) means that digital can drastically decrease wastage and harm to the environment.

So, surprisingly, I think that the Digital Revolution will in fact contribute positively to the environment, and is a cleaner and greener medium of which to work on compared with the older method of film.