Unplugging cellphone chargers improves environment, sort of

We are all guilty of having our chargers lying about and typically they stay plugged into the outlet even when they're not in use.  That is unless you've already caught wind that it's actually bad to do that.

I sadly, actually caught wind that it was bad and still have stuck to my habits.  Mostly because I have a tendency to lose it otherwise.  Well it turns out that there is more proof that it could be best to unplug the charger.  That is according to a Natural Philosophy Professor, David J.C. MacKay at the University of Cambridge.

He has posted his recently published research about how much energy we are wasting by leaving our chargers plugged in all the time.  It turns out phone chargers consume less then 0.5W, which doesn't seem like a whole lot.  In Britain the average person uses 5000W, which includes electricity as well as driving and home heating.   It's not a major amount is the thing, unplugging your charger is kind of the lazy man's way to half heartedly improve the environment.  The conclusion of his report is that no it's not that much, but every little bit helps.

[via crunchgear]