The ‘relentless pressure’ to upgrade to a new computer is creating a mountain of electronic waste, and threatens to become an environmental time bomb, warn researchers at Nottingham University Business School.

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Sustainability experts believe that around 2.5 billion perfectly usable PCs will be needlessly scrapped by 2013. They blame ‘lazy’ software developers for cutting corners, and creating programs that use more processing power than strictly necessary, forcing computer users to upgrade to a machine with more memory to handle modern computing demands.

“The principal solution to the problem of PC e-waste is for developers and marketers to stop using strategies that contribute to bloat and enforced upgrading,” said Professor Peter Swann, an expert in innovation and sustainability at the university.

Many computer vendors are paid by software makers to pre-install their programs on new machines. Professor Swann said that this ‘bloatware’, and the propensity of some programs to include rarely-used features that hog processing power, was contributing to the problem.

“The situation is an example of where uncritical innovation can be the very force that leads an industry on to an unsustainable path,” said Professor Swann. “We have only recently started to understand how much innovation can be in tension with sustainability, although examples are actually remarkably common.”

He said that computer makers and software developers could help to increase the lifespan of computers by making add-ons optional, and prolonging support and compatibility between new platforms and operating systems and older programs.

Unwanted computers are usually shipped to Asia, Latin America and Africa for recycling, but the United Nations last month voiced its concerns about the growing mountains of e-waste filling landfill sites in developing countries.