I’ve noticed a trend in my flat where every time I leave my laptop charger on and I leave the room the charger is mysteriously unplugged from the socket. This made me curious as to how much this little act is actually saving us. From searching around my best estimate for the ’standby’ power use for my charger is 1/2 a watt. I also estimate we are being charged around £0.07/kWh for electricity. So if the laptop charger was being wasted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year this would end up costing: 0.5 * 24 * 0.07 * 365 / 1000 = £0.30.
Not much, but I guess it all adds up. However, how much work is being done for this £0.30. Assuming it takes 5 seconds to unplug the charger this adds up to 1/2 an hours work over the whole year. I doubt many people would work for £0.60/hour. This also ignores the time I spend plugging the charger back in 
Sorry for the rant post but my housemates are on an irrational drive to reduce electricity and gas usage. The gas usage is the bit that is pissing me most off 
