I used to smugly think I worked in a clean, pollution-free industry. Ha! But that was many years ago before any talk of climate change. Electronics is notoriously bad for the environment. First there's the huge amount of electricity and batteries required. You've probably heard that a DVD player uses more electricity waiting in stand-by mode than it ever uses being played. All those nasty "wall wart" adapters waste electricity just being plugged in even if the device isn't on. Things like NiCad batteries can't be recycled and add poisonous waste to the rubbish. It's better to use regular batteries or Lithium Ion ones. Avoid NiCad.
And then there's the
eWaste. Mountains of waste electronics wind up in developing nations to be "recycled" by hand. Greenpeace has been ranking computer manufacturers and just published the latest list:
Green Electronics Guide
Nokia and Dell are at the top. Feel good if you own their products. Sony-Ericson isn't too bad but I've read some nasty stuff about Sony so I'm not keen to buy their stuff. Lenova is half-way which isn't great as I'm considering buying a ThinkPad next year. I'm sorry to see Samsung near the bottom since I like quite a few of their products.
But at the very bottom is Apple. That's a surprise for such a "progressive" company. Greenpeace has launched a
Green My Apple campaign. It's fun to see how they've subverted many of Apple's design motifs. Watch the TV ad. If you own a Mac, feel bad and take a look at what you can do -
.mAct.
Tag:
greenmyapple