About the author: Tony Frost is CEO of Sirocco Strategy Management.

Almost every day there is something new to consider, something to think about and something that is supposed to make our lives simpler, easier, faster.

Often this is both true and, at the same time, untrue. If one looks at a particular piece of technology in isolation, often the application it is supposed to serve does make that little part of our world simpler and quicker. But when one places the new piece of technology in the bigger context of our daily lives, it is questionable whether it really does make things simpler.

Take mobile phones or iPads, for example. They give one instant access – true – but what is their impact on social interaction? This technology has advanced the cause of instant global interconnectedness, but has it really created more time for individuals? And one has to wonder whether this access to superficial instant messaging creates adequate understanding for appropriate decision-making.

Where technology is playing a greater role is in the environment, where the major advances being made to reduce our environmental and carbon footprint are dependent on developments in technology.

Recently, I was lucky enough to be told about technology that will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on reducing our carbon footprint and the broader environment. They have to do with the ongoing challenge of how to dispose of the billions of plastic bags and millions of plastic cold drink bottles.

In the Cape, plastic bags are being collected in order to be recycled and turned into diesel for use in our cars. Considering these very plastic bags were once oil, scientists have now found ways to recycle them back into a form of oil that we can burn to get places.

In the Eastern Cape, plastic bottles that once held sugar-infused fizzy drinks are about to be collected, recycled and used again to make new bottles for the next generation of drinks. Both of these examples show conclusively just how technology can help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It does not mean we will stop using these fuels any time soon, but at least it will mean that we will not continue to consume new fossil fuel at the same rate as we have been.

If one adds this to the innovative and dramatic advances in the efficiency of the engines in our cars, trucks, planes and trains, we are extending the life of the remaining fuels.