Yes, the little things do add up.

The standby mode thing is built into EVERYTHING these days. I don't turn things off at the socket either for the exact reason you are talking about, but most of this stuff does not need to be on standby --- it's just made that way, and there is not much choice.

One example: I needed a new coffee maker the other day. The last one I had worked for nearly 20 years. All it had was a switch that you would slide from "on" to "off" and back. When it was off, it was off. Now you can't buy a coffee maker like that. They all have some kind of clock, timer, or other programable feature. When I turn off this coffee maker it still draws electricity because it has a clock to keep running, the LCD display for the clock, and a super-bright blue LED that is actually cool looking but almost painfully bright to look at and which serves no useful purpose whatsoever. I would just unplug it, but that is a pain in the ass, and it means that the clock will come up blinking when I plug it back in. I don't really care if my coffee pot knows what time it is, but I can't stand a blinking clock or one that is displaying the WRONG time. To me, all of this stuff is a waste. I do not need the clock, or the ability to program the pot, or the blue LED, so all of that was a waste to even manufacture in the first place. And now there is the ongoing waste of keeping all the features I don't want or need running all day and all night long.
dragonrider Reviewed by dragonrider on . Waste On a scale from 1 to 10 how wasteful do you think you are ? I waste a lot of electricity. In the years to come as the population of the world increases the available resources are going to dwindle and waste will be a thing of the past. Enjoy the time of plenty because it's gonna get nasty... :D Rating: 5