Is Apple Green enough?

There has been much controversy lately in regards to just how green are Apple computers. Greenpeace has launched a campaign that states Apple isn’t doing enough to be a leader in making computers more earth friendly. Specifically, they object to the many toxic materials being used in their computers. However, some people are saying that Greenpeace is just grandstanding and that Apple ranks better than most other computer makers in many environmental areas. Apple does very well with their laptops and Imac’s in terms of reduced energy consumption and is compliant with the with the European Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment, also known as the RoHS directive.

Apple states: “Apple products are compliant with the European Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment, also known as the RoHS directive. Examples of materials restricted by RoHS include lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and PBB and PBDE flame retardants. As a result of our precautionary approach to substances, Apple was able to meet many of the RoHS restrictions long before the July 2006 deadline.”
Here is the Apple statement on environment from their website.

A good articles from www.roughlydrafted.com examines merits of the Greenpeace campaign to green my apple This next article discusses this issue further and contains a reply from Greenpeace to their original article.

In all fairness, here is another article about the Apple/Greenpeace affair that explains the Greenpeace position very well and a with a very lively forum discussion about this on the Alternet site

I suspect there is some truth to both sides of this issue. Being a long time Mac user I think Apple should be a leader in making their computers as green as possible – to set the tread for the rest of the industry and it upsets me whenever they fall short in this regard. But from what I can tell the Mac is currently competitive in this area if not a leader - and is good green choice for someone thinking of getting a new computer.

One last suggestion. Before deciding on which computer to purchase you may want to check out the
Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool(EPEAT). EPEAT is a system to help purchasers in the public and private sectors evaluate, compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on their environmental attributes. EPEAT also provides a clear and consistent set of performance criteria for the design of products, and provides an opportunity for manufacturers to secure market recognition for efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its products.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 11:58 am and is filed under Computers, EcoFriendly, Energy Saving, Recyclable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.