American workers waste $2.8 billion leaving computers on

Nearly half of U.S. employees who use a PC at work don’t shut down their computers at the end of the day, wasting $2.8 billion every year.

Even a company with 10,000 PC's can save more than $165,000 a year in energy costs just by hutting down computers each night.

Data collected between September and October 2008 reveals that more than one-third of employees in the U.K. 32 % of U.S. employees and 17 % of German employees who use a PC at work said they either have no idea what power scheme settings are, or how to change the power settings on their PC's.

The survey also reveals that the U.S. employees that do power down do so to make sure their PC's work properly and to comply with company policy, not because they are interested in saving money or the environment.

The externally-attached ecobutton (http://www.eco-button.com/) lets you hit a button (think Staples' easy button) to powerdown when you step away, without having to reset your computer's settings.