Many people will tell you that playing video games all day is bad for you (whether that’s actually true or just an old new wives tale is yet to be proven), but very rarely do you hear about the negative effects gaming has on the environment.

Well, the Natural Resources Defense Council decided to look into it and discovered that American game console use added up to "an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year — roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego."

While asking everyone to toss their beloved video games might be a bit extreme, there are ways that you can mange their power use:

"Through the incorporation of more user-friendly power management features, we could save approximately 11 billion kWh of electricity per year, cut our nation’s electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year, and avoid emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO₂ each year."

For example, make sure you unplug your device every night. You don’t leave your other lights on when you go to bed, do you?