AlterNet: Apple Computers: Fun for You, Toxic for the Environment

[marmar]

Apple Computers: Fun for You, Toxic for the Environment

By Jess Hemerly, AlterNet. Posted January 30, 2007.



Apple positions itself as the technological haven for the hip, the progressive, and the revolutionary. But when it comes to the environment, Apple is quite out of touch.

Before an audience of tech lovers, developers, and Mac enthusiasts, Steve Jobs unveiled the creation everyone has been speculating about for years: the iPhone. Fans hung on every word as the Apple CEO stood onstage during his keynote address at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Dressed in a black mock turtleneck, he told the rapt crowd about patents for polymers, innovative user interfaces and corporate partnerships.

Jobs went on for nearly two hours about how amazing and revolutionary his gadget will be. But he did not mention the company's environmental policy once.

Then again, who talks about environmental policy at an electronics fair? Michael Dell does. A few states away at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas during the second week of January, the head of struggling Dell Computers raised the stakes for the entire PC industry: "I challenge every PC maker to join us in providing free recycling for every customer in every country ... all the time -- no exceptions," he said.

Jobs and the PR wizards at Apple have done a fantastic job of positioning the company as the technological haven for the hip, the progressive and the revolutionary. But when it comes to the environment, Apple is out of touch.

In December of 2006, Greenpeace released a report ranking the overall environmental policy of major technology companies. Dell was at the top but Apple found itself at the bottom. While top companies like Dell and Nokia have made great strides to eliminate the most toxic chemicals from their products and offer strong recycling programs, Apple has not.

"Today you can't recycle most of these products because you're recycling toxic waste," says Rick Hind, legislative director of the Greenpeace Toxic Campaign. "We're looking at it from a complete life cycle approach, from where we make these to where they end up. Twenty to 50 million tons of e-waste a year end up in China; that is endangering to migrant families trying to remove a very small percentage of the materials for recycling." .....(more)

The rest of article is at: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/47228/

[Taxloss]

1. Ohh, the Mac fans won't like this.

:popcorn:

[msongs]

2. hehe with 3% market share it can't be THAT big a problem lol nt

[we can do it]

4. ok whatever

[ToolTex]

3. Maybe Apple isn't so bad. Few Apple computers are ever thrown away.

They just keep on keeping on, as they get handed down. Most will still run current software, albeit sometimes slowly. My four grandchildren, all under seven have their own handed down Macs. Not much reason to send a Mac to a landfill.

[unpossibles]

5. there is some truth here

my wife sold her first generation iMac a few years back to a woman who bought it (for several hundred dollars, I might add) to give to her baby daughter as a learning toy. Meanwhile, my old PCs are best used as paper weights or insulation in the walls....

[soswolf]

6. Insulation?

Cool!

How do you get that to work? My wife has been bugging me to get my "boneyard" of parts trimmed down...

[unpossibles]

7. me too. i was joking about the insulation

we're in the middle of a large rehab project, and I guess it crossed my mind to bury my old computers in the walls.

lol...

[soswolf]

8. Maybe you could make flowerpots out of them...

depending on the manufacturer.

[NNadir]

9. Does this mean that Greenpeace will shut all of its websites?

Or would that be inconvenient?