Blog: Toxics

We've just released our latest edition of the Guide to Greener Electronics - the 15th since we started producing quarterly reports back in 2006. Find out which electronics producers are doing their bit for a cleaner environment. Just how green are big names such as Samsung, Dell, Apple and HP?

The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

There are detailed reports on each company's performance, plus an nifty new timeline showing how their ranking has changed over time since the first guide was launched - a helpful indication of how much effort they are making in this crucial area.

Check out the full guide on our international site »

Ships work to contain the oil spill © Sean Gardner/Greenpeace

Will they never learn? Today the Gulf coast of the southern US is facing environmental catastrophe. Over 200,000 gallons of crude oil a day is leaking from the wellhead of the destroyed BP rig Deepwater Horizon, creating a giant slick visible from space.

This article by Greenpeace climate campaigner Joss Garman (above) first appeared in yesterday's Guardian.

In his inaugural address, President Obama promised to "work tirelessly to … roll back the spectre of a warming planet", and to "restore science to its rightful place", adding: "Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed."

You wouldn't know it from reading the Guardian this morning. Instead of sensing the spirit of "yes we can", you feel the familiar muscle of America's Big Carbon special interests. For months, US officials have been dampening expectations and lowering the bar on which climate measures could be expected from the new administration. This culminated yesterday in Obama signalling that he wants to delay a formal global climate agreement until next year at the earliest, rejecting the advice of his own science adviser, John Holdren.

Greenpeace activists confront the tanker full of toxic sludge.

It reads a little bit like a John Grisham novel. An oil trading company at the heart of the city of London comes up with an innovative way to make massive profits by refining dirty gasoline. Only problem is, the process will produce a highly toxic sludge that is difficult to dispose of. Sure, they could pay an expensive fee to get it done in Rotterdam, but profits can be kept even higher by doing the dirty and dumping the caustic sludge in the city of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, West Africa.

It's a plan designed to squeeze every last drop of money out of a dirty deal. But then the local population starts to suffer horrendous health effects, presumably from the toxic waste which has been dumped next to homes and workplaces. Whole areas of the city are evacuated, 15 people die, many more are permanently disfigured. People beseige health clinics demanding treatment.