The COVID-19 pandemic pushed schools to provide all their students with their own devices, often low-cost Chromebooks. But now, many of these Chromebooks are failing, according to a new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund entitled “
Chromebook Churn.” We expect expiration dates for milk, but not for laptops.
Doubling the life of just Chromebooks sold in 2020 could cut emissions equivalent to taking 900 thousand cars off the road for a year, more than the number of cars registered in Mississippi.
“We can’t afford to stay on the disposability treadmill,” said
Lucas Rockett Gutterman, the author of the report and the director of U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s “Designed to Last” campaign. “For the sake of Americans’ wallets and America’s environment, all tech devices should last longer. Google can lead the way by slowing down the ‘Chromebook churn.’”
Schools have piles of working Chromebooks that have become e-waste because they no longer receive software support.
Chromebooks have a built-in “death date,” after which software support ends. Once laptops have “expired,” they don’t receive updates and can’t access secure websites. For example, instructors have reported that expired laptops can’t access online state testing websites.
“Chromebooks aren’t built to last. Professional repair techs tell me they’re often forced to chuck good Chromebook hardware with years of life left due to aggressive software expiration dates. Let’s stop wasting money and our planet’s resources on premature upgrades,” said Dr. Elizabeth Chamberlain, the Director of Sustainability at repair website iFixit.
pirg.org
