“Rotten to the Core”: Greenpeace Finds Laptops Still Ripe with Toxins
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 09.21.06
If you’re reading this, then you’re on the computer. If it’s a laptop, the computer may even be on you. Greenpeace recently did an in-depth lab analysis of five popular laptops and found some scary stuff. Testing for heavy metals, PVC, and bromated flame retardants (which have been shown to also act as human retardants), Greenpeace found laptops to be ripe with toxins. The five models tested were from Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, and Sony. Among the findings were that, although HP announced that it would stop using a type of flame retardant known as decaBDE a year ago (also see here), lab tests found otherwise. HP was also the only computer found to contain lead. Greenpeace has since downgraded HP's status in their Toxic Technology report card. While chromium was present in all models, Apple’s new MacBook was found to have the highest levels. Bromated flame retardants were found in around a quarter of all substances and components from all laptop models, both in internal parts like wires and fans, and in externals like mouse track pads. Check out Greenpeace’s detailed and extensive (but surprisingly readable) full report here. :: Greenpeace via Hugg
There is a pending update/correction to this post coming soon.
do they review game consoles?
Oh, good question Sam. now you have me curious.
Hmm... well, as troubling as this it, I still plan on getting a laptop to replace this big space heater and white noise generator that I call my desktop.
And you actually think a laptop is cooler? Some components stuffed into a smaller space?
If you ground up a walnut desk you would find many toxins withing the wood structure. Does that make it bad? Of course not.
The point is that risk = hazard times exposure. This evaluation is all about hazard, and the exposure evaluation is largely phoney. People do not grind up their computers. THe only situations I know of where exposure to laptop PC chemical constituent hazards exist in the real world are:
leaching from a landfill
worker contact during recycling
user exposure in the event of a battery overheating.
emissions from an incinerator
I can not imagine any of these exposure scenarios realistically represented by grinding. What is it exactly that GP is simulating here?
It's really surprising and disappointing to see TH swallow the GP press kit without questioning or critical analysis. I have come to expect more from TH.
I read through Greenpeace's new "chemicals in computers" report. The title, and the headers on their press release, do not reflect at all the actual findings. Read it closer, please --the findings actually make the laptop manufacturers look pretty good, especially when you consider that the laptops in question were purchased months before compliance with the European Union's(EU) RoHS Directive was required (these were, after all, purchased in EU member states) and may have been the last of their kind (pre-RoHS) in stock...
No cadmium, mercury or hexavalent chrome found in any of the laptops.
Lead was only found in the HP model (Pavilion dv4357EA), and that in relatively low concentrations in solder (surprise, surprise).
No HBCD or PBB identified in any of the samples.
No PBDEs were found in the Dell and Sony models, while Apple (which Greenpeace has savaged in the press) and Acer had only trace (basically negligible and certainly under the levels allowed by EU law) levels of PBDEs.
No TBBPA (a chemical not banned by the RoHS Directive) was found in the Sony model, and only traces found in the others.
The amount of PVC (also not banned by the RoHS Directive, or by national laws) was also very low: only a single wire in the Acer and Apple (both slammed in the "Greener Electronics" report), and two wires in the HP model.
TH calls this "ripe with toxins"????
GP played up in the press release the few chemicals of concern they actually found, and tried to make much of finding bromine compounds, even though they could not prove most of it resulted from brominated fire retardants (TH leaves the opposite impression in this article). GP fretted that if these units are incinerated, the bromine compounds can become a toxic hazard. But is this worry truly significant? How often are end-of-life (EOL) electronics actually incinerated in the developing countries Greenpeace says it is worried about? Not often at all in Latin America and the Caribbean, I can tell you (as someone who has written alot about waste management in LAC nations).
I suppose it's good that GP tried to get at least *some* concrete test data instead of relying solely on published corporate claims, but this was not the way to do it. But please, in testing and statistical terms, five units bought in 2 countries proves little.
Why, given the funds they command, the number of office they have worldwide, and their expressions of concern about *global* hazardous material management, did they not test more units from more countries, including some non-EU (preferably some from developing nation markets such as Mexico and Brazil)?
If they don't want to spend the money or are not up to the job, why not team up with consumer testing groups with proven track records such as Consumers Union US (publisher of Consumer Reports)? Surely CU would do a better job of testing & reporting than GP has done so far.
The lack of transprency in their selection criteria for these test is just like the lack of transparency in why they picked which manufacturers and which critera they covered in the "Greener Electronics" report. Why these 5 firms, and these 5 models, instead of all 14 firms & types of electronics targeted in the "Greener Electronics" scorecard? Why pick the UK and Denmark to buy the units? Picked at random? Based on market share/size? Something else? Why only laptops, and not other electronics (no, they didn't test game consoles)? They don't say, leaving them open to questions about their motives in what they pick to test.
I guess it's good that they carried through their prior threat to downgrade anyone (in this case HP) they decide is not living up to their public claims on chemicals. But why then, did they not upgrade Acer and Apple for being better on this than expected in these tests? Haven't they said that they want to encourage positive corporate behavior?
GP needs to clean up its act. If they continue in this manner they may score media points in the early going, but will lose ground if the electronics industry ever mounts a well, conceived, well-documented, assertive counter-campaign.
Well, if you care to hear more musings (rantings?) about this, check my own blog.
I'd be curious to see if there were actually any exposure risks associated with these things being in computers. For instance, are there studies that indicate absorption through the skin of Bromated Flame Retardants from the use of a laptop track pad?
I can understand the risks of exposure to these elements during the recycling process, and one would hope that recycling centers are properly equipped to protect their employees from exposure. If not, OSHA needs to step in.
One would hope that computer manufacturing processes could eventually remove such dangerous things from their computers, but there comes a point where things just have to be used in order to get the job done. Then it comes down to making them as safe as possible, and ensuring that high standards are in place.
I commend Greenpeace for their work and remain vigilant in this issue.
Does anybody here work in electronics? No? Didn't think so. The technological hurdles required to remove some toxins from products are enormous. Just taking the lead out of solder is an enormous hit in cost and quality. this doesn't even speak of such nasties as electrolytic capacitors, solder paste stabilizers, conformal coating, etc.
Nobody wants to use these things, we simply have to. There is no other way in many cases. Or the other ways cost so much that no consumer would purchase the product that use them.
I'm all about huggin' some trees, but you have to do it in an economical kind of way. A more useful way for Greenpeace to spend their time would be to research ways to recycle these components so that they would not end up in land fills.
Ben: If that's the case, then why have some manufacturers successfully removed these things and others haven't?
Yup, unfortunately Ben's right. As long as you still need/use electronics, there are no short-cuts.
For more reading into what's actually going on in the industry (a.k.a. progress) as a whole, I suggest reading up about the Restruction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) and related/ongoing news at Green Supply Line.
I commend Greenpeace for focusing attention on these issues. It's easy to forget what may lurk inside these machines. Even if the user is not exposed, the presence of these toxins has implications for the health of workers both upstream and downstream from the user.
Having said that, I want to point out that there is real controversy, and allegations of inappropriate action on Greenpeace's part, in relation to this project. Details here:
http://tinyurl.com/krqxu
JiltedCitizen : same components? hardly. the laptop I'm looking at is a core 2 duo, which is known for not putting out much heat or using much energy. Laptop hardrives are smaller and it also uses a LCD screen (as opposed to my current CRT). plus, it is possible to charge laptops on portable solar devices. (not that it matters - I'm running this one on wind)
So. less energy, less heat.