Blog: Toxics

Company scores plummet in Greener Electronics Guide

Posted by jossc - 25 June 2008 at 11:50am - Comments

A pile of electronic waste on a roadside in Guiyu, China. © Greenpeace / Natalie Behring-Chisholm

With expanded and tougher criteria on toxic chemicals, electronic waste and new criteria on climate change only Sony and Sony Ericsson score more than 5/10 in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Nintendo and Microsoft remain rooted to the bottom of the Guide.

The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society's gizmo-loving ways.

Game consoles: no consolation

Posted by jossc - 20 May 2008 at 12:45pm - Comments

Playing Dirty - none of the best selling games consoles come out clean

Nintendo's Wii. Sony's PlayStation 3 Elite. Microsoft's Xbox 360. They promise a whole new generation of high-definition gaming, but when it comes to the crunch, it's the same old story. As our search for greener electronics continues, it was time for the game consoles to go to our labs for scientific analysis – and all of them tested positive for various hazardous chemicals.

Our analysis, published in our new report, Playing Dirty, detected the use of hazardous chemicals and materials such aspolyvinyl chloride (PVC), phthalates, beryllium and bromine indicative of brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

More information on our international site »

Apple is getting greener, you can almost taste it

Posted by tracy - 16 January 2008 at 6:25pm - Comments

This time last year Steve Jobs was ignoring our calls for a greener Apple, but yesterday he revealed the new MacBook Air – the thinnest notebook on the planet and Apple’s greenest computer so far.

It uses less brominated fire retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), but it hasn’t eliminated them entirely. Had it done so, it would have made Apple an ecological leader.

Thinking about a games console for Christmas?

Posted by tracy - 12 December 2007 at 12:43pm - Comments

clash of the consoles

I can remember my first games console, the Atari 2600, a Christmas present in 1984. It seemed space age at the time, fake wood panel, RSI inducing joysticks, Pac man, Asteroids, I think I even played Pong on that thing, and for hours. I’m sure there was nothing green about it, I didn’t even understand boys, let alone the toxic chemicals lurking in my beloved games console.

But we’ve come a long way since Pac man, although I still don’t understand boys, I do know that games consoles don’t have to come with toxic chemicals. Nor should they contribute to the mountains of e-waste once kids tire of them a few months after Christmas.

E-Waste: the truth about Windows

Posted by jossc - 4 December 2007 at 3:27pm - Comments

Question: switching from a computer running on Windows to one running on Linux could slash computer-generated e-waste levels by 50 per cent. True or false?

And the answer is (cue long drawn-out tension building drumroll): TRUE!

Gaming giants fail toxic exam

Posted by jossc - 27 November 2007 at 6:57pm - Comments

Green Elecronocs Guide Autumn 2007

With Christmas getting ever closer we've some unfestive bad news for gaming giants Nintendo, makers of the popular Wii, Gamecube and Game Boy consoles. They've achieved a spectacular zero score in the latest edition of our quarterly Greener Electronics Guide - the first time such a feat has ever been accomplished.

The guide ranks companies on the toxic content of their products and their willingness to take back and recycle them once they become redundant. This is the first time that we've included gaming consoles, giving Nintendo the chance to leap straight into last place - an opportunity they grasped with both hands!

A greener Apple? The iPhone fails to bear green fruit

Posted by bex - 15 October 2007 at 4:19pm - Comments

You might be looking forward to the European launch of Apple's iPhone in November (we were certainly looking forward to the possibility that the iPhone would prove Steve Jobs' newfound commitment to the environment).

Unfortunately, the iPhone's beauty only runs skin deep. A team of scientists got hold of one, dismantled it and uncovered nasty stuff that other phone makers have already stopped using, including two types of hazardous substances:

Our international office has the full story - including a report (pdf) and a slideshow of high quality images.

Electronics companies clean up their acts

Posted by bex - 20 September 2007 at 2:18pm - Comments

It's that time again; we've just released our latest quarterly Greener Electronics Guide, which ranks manufacturers on their toxics and recycling policies and practices.

Toxic tea party

Posted by jossc - 30 July 2007 at 4:45pm - Comments

Toxic team made from poisoned local ground water, Guiya, SE China

One of the most serious consequences of the dramatic floods which swamped parts of England in recent weeks was the loss of clean drinking water. Even now that the citizens of Tewkesbury have running water once again, it will be a few more days before they can safely start drinking their tap water.

Greenpeace videos on Youtube

Posted by jossc - 24 July 2007 at 11:02am - Comments

Greenpeace UK YouTube screenshot

For me one of the coolest things about our new-look site is that we're carrying a lot more streaming video courtesy of the good folks at YouTube. But did you know that we now have our own YouTube Greenpeace UK Video Channel?

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