Rotten to the Core? A Guest Blogger Responds to Greenpeace’s New Controversial Report on Laptop Toxicity
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 10. 3.06
After posting on TreeHugger about Greenpeace’s recent report on toxicity in laptop computers, we got a small torrent of comments from readers questioning Greenpeace’s methods and how they reported their findings. The discussion seemed such an important one that we promised a follow-up to flesh out the issue. One particularly pointed comment came from Keith Ripley, and we’ve invited him to expand on his comment in which he criticized the Greenpeace report, and the eco-blogs who wrote on it uncritically. (Full guest post below the fold) Keith is a blogger, author, and consultant focusing on environment, health, safety and consumer protection issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. More of his writings can be found at The Temas Blog. We hope to see further discussion of toxicity in electronics and suggestions for more positive action.
When TreeHugger and others recommended Greenpeace’s “Greener Electronics” report, I downloaded it and read it with great interest.
That report troubled me for several reasons. It did not disclose the selection criteria for the companies and product lines chosen. The narrow focus on materials management and end-of-life (EOL) product take-back/recycling excluded a more complete (and probably more accurate) picture of products’ footprint. GP did not apply the rating criteria consistently. The report said little about developing nations apart from China.
“Ripe with Toxins”???
The rating system relied principally on corporate information provided on websites – an odd choice for the NGO that coined the term “greenwash” and continually questions the substantive value of corporate claims and pronouncements. I felt (and blogged) that Greenpeace needed to get hard data, verifiable data, to back it up or their rating system would never stand up to scrutiny.
Thus when TreeHugger announced that Greenpeace had released a new report showing that laptops were “ripe with toxins,” I rushed to download, thinking here was some of the hard data I had wanted.
The report was not as advertised.
Despite the headlines-grabbing report title and press release headers, the report’s actual findings were little to get excited about:
—No cadmium, mercury or hexavalent chrome found in any of the laptops;
—Lead was only found in the HP model, and that in relatively low concentrations in solder;
—No HBCD or PBB identified in any of the samples;
—No PBDEs were found in the Dell and Sony models, while Apple and Acer had only trace levels—basically negligible and certainly under the levels allowed by European Union (EU) law—the law applicable to where the laptops were bought) of PBDEs. Only HP, a company praised in the "Greener Electronics" report, had significant levels for PBDEs: 1650 mg/kg (or 0.165% by weight) of decaBDE and 2040 mg/kg (0.204% by weight) of nonaBDEs.
—No TBBPA—a chemical not banned by the EU’s 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, and two wires in the HP model.
Greenpeace tried to play up the presence of bromine compounds in the laptops, even though they could not tie it directly to the brominated fire retardants they have said are of greatest concern. "At the product’s end of life, some disposal or recycling operations (e.g incineration, smelting and open burning) can potentially release the bromine in hazardous forms, including hydrogen bromide and brominated dioxins."
Possible, yes—I’ve seen the Greenpeace video of Indian boys burning circuit boards in the open air. However, but is it a prevalent risk outside of China and India? I have my doubts—I say that as someone who covers waste and recycling issues extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean—and GP has not presented evidence to back that up. Even if it be found to be happening elsewhere, should the whole world regulate what goes into products on the basis of irresponsible artisan recycling practices in a few countries? That’s quite a slippery slope to start down.
A Start, But a Flawed Start
As an initial attempt to go beyond simple reliance on official company information, the “chemicals in laptops” report might be considered a (baby) step forward. Furthermore, by downgrading HP in its ratings after the finds of this report, Greenpeace has demonstrated that it meant what it said previously about penalizing companies if they found that real market data did not match corporate claims (even though penalizing on the basis of one model of one product line bought in one market is a bit dubious). I note, however, that GP did not reward Acer or Apple for findings better than those suggested by the Greener Electronics report.
That said, if Greenpeace intends to continue trying to hold the electronics firms accountable and if they care about their credibility, they'll have to get their act together and do far better than this toxics report. It is flawed on several counts:
—The sampling is too limited—only five units bought in two countries (and why those two —GP doesn't say, of course). One wonders what they thought to accomplish with such a tiny sample, and why they did not devote more resources to the testing.
—Why not test products bought in more EU member states, or for that matter, why not those from some non-EU states, especially developing nations (such as Latin America)? These products are not just sold in Europe, and if they contain toxins, their impact as EOL products will matter more to the waste streams of countries other than China and India. Why not have GP offices across the world go out and buy models from local stores and send them in for testing?
If GP does not wish to shoulder the cost of doing so alone, then they should explore teaming up with career consumer product testers with credibility such as many of the members of Consumers International [Consumers Union US (CSUS, which publishes the monthly Consumer Reports), Australian Consumers Association (ACA), UK's Which?, France's UFC, Brazil's IDEC, etc.). After all, Greenpeace says it is doing this to inform and empower consumers, so why not enlist the aid of consumer testing agencies? And CI has expressed strong interest in doing more work on "green consumerism"...
—Why only five brands instead of most or all of the 14 they rated in their other report? Were they picked at random? Based on market share data? Some other criterion? Why only notebooks/laptops, and not a sampling of desktops or other electronics? GP does not say in either its report or the press piece on its website. As in the "Green Electronics" report, Greenpeace's lack of transparency about its selection criteria harms their credibility and makes them more vulnerable to questioning of their motives.
—The laptops were all bought three months before the EU compliance deadline for the RoHS Directive. GP acknowledges this in the report, but claims they were not actually testing for RoHS compliance so much as setting a baseline. If that is truly the case, why not test models bought just after the deadline? Why pick up models that might be the end of old inventory, and test them for chemicals still allowed when they were manufactured?
The Way Forward
This is not the way for Greenpeace to make its case. Over several decades GP has brought many important environmental issues to the public’s attention when no one else would or seemed capable of doing so. I respect them for that, and for some of good creative, ground-breaking work they have done in areas such as renewable energy and alternative technologies.
But like many of the industry sectors and companies GP spotlights, just because Greenpeace does some good works does not mean we should accept all they say at face-value, not hold them accountable, not demand that they do their work right and in a transparent manner. If they have decided to take on a sector such as the electronics industry, with all its fans and allies in the media and on the internet, GP needs to focus on conducting and emitting well-done work and associated PR that stands up to scrutiny.
GP needs to win on substance, especially if they truly wish to change corporate behavior and/or get regulators to act.
Very informative post.
I had many of the same questions and concerns. There is an ad hocism in Green Peace's approach that smacks of shooting from the hip. It's almost like they formed a conclusion and worked the evidence backwards to prove their point.
The level of arbitrary process and faulty conclusions make me wonder if some rather junior GP workers ran a bit out of control.
They were quite obviously over their heads in this specialized area, yet didn't seek out expertise; very irresponsible, both to the manufacturers and for Green Peace's own reputation.
One of the oddest and circumspect part of the project was the mock Apple website. It makes you wonder if they were gunning for Apple from the get-go.
In any event, if they want their work to be taken seriously, sophomoric stunts like that aren't the way to go. Green Peace had fallen quite a few notches in my opinion of them.
Yep, it did seem like Greenpeace launched a vendetta against Apple in their report. And why create a website specifically targeting Apple in the first place? If they really wanted electronics manufacturers to go green, they shouldn't just highlight one brand.
I've written similar criticisms of the fraud Greenpeace has engaged in:
Greenpeace Lies About Apple
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/E83D58B3-10E0-4A9C-8847-BCE665EE235C.html
Greenpeace Apologizes For Apple Stink
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/ABC6DFDA-9DE9-4EA8-A269-65EAAB628676.html
More Secrets: The Scandal of Green Computing
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/8CF7086A-C394-4C0B-AF96-B7B109CE36A4.html
Top Secret: Greenpeace Report Misleading and Incompetent
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/29C5599A-FCD8-4E30-9AD5-5497999ABA1B.html
With reference to the comment "should the whole world regulate what goes into products on the basis of irresponsible artisan recycling practices in a few countries?"
I have been living in Africa for a few years now and can tell you that burning of garbage of all sorts appears to be a STANDARD practice on the whole continent.
bibieng, I was not speaking of simple burning of garbage. I was speaking of the practice in some places such as China and India -- repeatedly mentioned by Greenpeace during its electronics campaign -- of people burning the circuit boards of computers in order to extract valuable components for sale. Follow the link for the GP video I included in the article to see what I mean.
This practice is not recommended by anybody I know of and as practiced in that video is clearly hazardous to the workers involved and probably even illegal under local law, but their employer (a guy working illegally out of an apartment) clearly doesn't care.
My point was, are we to regulate the contents of electronics globally on the basis of bad practice by artisanal recyclers in India? Why then, don't we stop manufacturing lead-acid car batteries right now, because I know for certain that artesanal "mining" of those batteries for their lead -- highly hazardous to the workers and the surrounding community -- is practiced illegally all over Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
Or how about all plastics? Because in many parts of LAC -- as I certain throughout Africa too -- plastics are burned -- usually against the law -- in open-air fires, releasing toxic fumes.
Or how about some of the fire retardants used in clothes, fabrics and mattresses? Those items are sometimes burned in developing country (usually illegal) dumps, releasing fumes to the poor people that live and around the dumps. Removing them might mean more burns to people wearing them or sleeping on them, but at least no fumes in those illegal burning dumps in some countries, right?
Or perhaps we should consider stopping the manufacture of all vehicle tires, since these are burned by protesters every time there is a "popular strike" in the Dominican Republic and other LAC (and I suspect African) nations, releasing toxic fumes.
At what point do we draw the line? And when do we start focusing more on educational, regulatory and enforcement efforts at the end of the product cycle to make certain that products are handled, recycled, treated and disposed of properly, instead of trying to change every material and component in our products that are safe in normal usage and end-of-life procedures but that [i]potentially[/i] could cause problems when [i]mis-[/i]handled or [i]improperly[/i] recycled, treated or disposed of?
BTW, I seriously doubt that even in Africa computers (or any other electronics or electrical equipment) are simply burned. More likely the useful components are scavanged first, then the remains are thrown in a dump. That certainly is the more common practice in LAC, or in the US, for that matter.
Regards, Keith R
Hello Keith
Here is a Greenpeace response to your post about the details of the laptop testing report from Dr. Kevin Brigden, who wrote the report on laptop testing:
Greenpeace references to ewaste in China and India is because we have visited these recycling yards, where we found evidence of large amounts of ewaste from US, Europe and Japan being recycled in primitive conditions. Testing shows the environmental contamination of recycling yards at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/recyclingelectronicwasteindiachinafull.pdf
See also:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/where-does-e-waste-end-up
Other NGOs, such as Basel Action Network have documented similar dirty recycling practices in Africa at: http://www.ban.org/BANreports/10-24-05/index.htm
UNEP has also evidence of e-waste dumping around the world at:
http://www.grid.unep.ch/product/publication/download/ew_ewaste.en.pdf
With respect to testing of laptops, yes the sampling was limited - it's very time-consuming and costly and highly technical. We demonstrated that even from such a limited study it was possible to find toxic chemicals (including those manufacturer had claimed to stop using).
In the case of HP, although HP claims on its website that it has not used one type of brominated flame retardant - decaBDE - for years, testing of this one model showed this statement to be false.
No cadmium or mercury was found - yes, but other toxic chemicals where identified.
Lead was found at 4.5% - 13% - lower than in some electrical solder, but 45-130 times the RoHS limit for lead (RoHs didn't apply to these models, but is a useful benchmark)
We analysed for a range of BFRs. No we didn't find every single chemical we looked for, but we didn't expect to. This shows that hazardous chemicals can be phased out - as far as we know PBBs are not now incorporated into products (though we wanted to check - you never can be sure that you are given correct info)
Only traces of TBBPA /PDBEs - we found high levels of bromine at 0.19% to 9.4% (that's almost one tenth by weight of bromine!) in around a quarter of all the components and materials tested. Bromine levels are indicative of BFR levels, though do not show the actual chemicals.
Due to the time and cost of the highly technical analysis we were only able to analyse one sample part from each laptop model for the BFRs. We chose the fans, as all had high bromine levels (5.3 and 7% by weight). We were able to identify the exact chemicals (and their levels) that made up of a small part of the total bromine - and this included the decaBDE that HP had claimed to stop using - as we said, there are other forms of brominated chemicals that contribute to the total amount of bromine.
TBBPA - as we said, TBBPA is commonly chemically bound into plastics, and therefore it is not able to extract and test for it. The levels of TBBPA monomer found (and the far higher total bromine levels) may indicate the incorporation of TBBPA into the plastics at far higher levels.
For both TBBPA and PDBE, as we said; "it is not possible to obtain any further information as to the chemical nature of the majority of the detectable bromine content in the fans using the methods employed in this study. To obtain such information by analysis is likely to remain very difficult, such that the only option may ultimately be to request such information from the component manufacturers themselves." Why don't manufactures provide consumers such information?
Keith Ripley says we could not tie the high bromine levels to the 'brominated flame retardants we said are of highest concern'. We gave the environmental & health issues of the BFRs we were able to identify, and some are of high concern. The EU now restricts nonaBDE, one of the PBDEs we found. We don't know what other forms of brominated chemicals have been incorporated, we could only surmise. So we cannot say if the other chemical forms that make up the majority of the bromine are equally of concern, are safer, or pose even greater risk, or even if they are safe to use. The one thing we could and did say is their presence gives the potential to generate yet more hazardous chemicals upon disposal.
"The amount of PVC was low" - The results demonstrate our call for substitution. It is great that some wires do not have PVC coating, this shows it is not necessary - so why is PVC used for others?
Many of the pollutants we discuss in the report are persistent in the environment. Keith questions if they are a risk outside where the products are dumped or recycled - should we ask Artic polar bears if they object to the PBDEs in their blood as a result of sources far away? International agreements such as the Stockholm Convention that addresses persistent organic pollutants have been created for the very reason that global pollutants do not stay in the country where they are emitted to the environment.
I am glad that Greenpeace decided to officially respond, and that in doing so, they largely stuck to being civil and more or less substantive. They didn’t address all the issues I raised in my guest blog on Treehugger, however. But I’ll get to that in a moment. First let me respond on the points they did address.
Greenpeace references to ewaste in China and India is because we have visited these recycling yards, where we found evidence of large amounts of ewaste from US, Europe and Japan being recycled in primitive conditions.
Yes, large amounts of e-waste from the US, Europe and Japan are being recycled in primitive conditions in China and India, and yes that is of concern. But why is Greenpeace not publicly calling on the carpet the governments involved -- national and local -- with ferocity at least as equal as that they apply to some of the manufacturers? Why isn't there a mock website about India and China, instead of just one targeting Apple? Given China's recent attempts to appear "green," perhaps you should call them out. Both of those nations ratified the Basel Convention and China claims to have applied the Basel Ban since 2001 -- why not call them out on e-waste the same way Greenpeace got Brasil to ban imports of lead-acid batteries for "recycling" (artesanal mining) several years ago?
The practices and conditions you witnessed in China and India are probably illegal under national law there. Did you report them to the proper authorities? Some of the workers in the Greenpeace video I saw looked underaged. Did you report that to labor authorities?
If concerned about the welfare of those workers in the "recycling" operations, why aren't you doing your utmost to see them shut down and to block the creation of new operations to take their place? If doing your utmost, why don't we hear about it as much?
UNEP has also evidence of e-waste dumping around the world at:
http://www.grid.unep.ch/product/publication/download/ew_ewaste.en.pdf
Actually, I’ve read the the UNEP report you cite, and it produces no new, independent evidence of such whatsoever. The information and graphic used are derived from reports provided by NGOs, including Greenpeace. By the way, the graphic used in the UNEP report based on NGO submissions is then cites UNEP as the source in the Greenpeace report you cite. Isn’t that recasting the data?
With respect to testing of laptops, yes the sampling was limited - it's very time-consuming and costly and highly technical. We demonstrated that even from such a limited study it was possible to find toxic chemicals (including those manufacturer had claimed to stop using).
The sampling was very limited, but the conclusions drawn in the accompanying PR (the report itself was more qualified and nuanced, but still) were quite broad -- too broad for a sampling size of five units bought in two countries.
Frankly, since you are a scientist I am surprised that you are trying to defend the claims made on behalf of such a limited study from which no meaningful conclusions can be drawn and whose design and selection criteria are anything but transparent. For any other type of product, could you have tested only five random samples from two countries and from there extrapolated sweeping claims about product composition and toxicity for an entire sector in the global marketplace, and still be taken seriously?
I think that if you are going to test these products and make claims about their average composition and hazards, you need to design a more meaningful study. For example, if I buy five samples of a food product in two countries and find lead concentrations in one of them, can I conclude that all brands of that food are toxic? If I bought five oscillating fans from Belgium and Sweden, and found that one of them had lead solder and PVC-encased wires, could I then claim all oscillating fans on the marketplace worldwide are laden with toxins? That, in essence, is what Greenpeace did in the publicity it issued in conjunction with this report.
Testing is "time-consuming and costly and highly technical" ok, but if it is a question of resources (personnel, man-hours, cost of electronic purchases, lab services, etc.), then why doesn't GP take up my suggestion of teaming up with experienced product testers in multiple countries so we can get a more meaningful sample?
BTW, one has to wonder if laptops, because of their compact structures, might have been far more costly and time-consuming to test than, say, desktops, or printers, or TVs, or... so why laptops first?
In the case of HP, although HP claims on its website that it has not used one type of brominated flame retardant - decaBDE - for years, testing of this one model showed this statement to be false.
Yes, and you downgraded them for it, and I gave you points for keeping your promise on that from your Greener Electronics (review my posts again, you’ll see it). Two points here, though: (1) are you certain this is not an isolated case? On what basis? (2) Acer and Apple were found to do better in their components than the "Greener Electronics" report supposed, yet they were not given credit for it. Why not?
No cadmium or mercury was found - yes, but other toxic chemicals where identified.
You brush this aside as if this is a minor issue or find. Given the toxicity of these heavy metals and how much of it has been in electronics in the past – and still can be found in many electronics outside of Europe and North America – it is not.
Lead was found at 4.5% - 13% - lower than in some electrical solder, but 45-130 times the RoHS limit for lead (RoHs didn't apply to these models, but is a useful benchmark).
The fact remains that lead was only found in ONE of five models – the same model that contained the decaBDE. GP knows all too well that it was no small matter for the industry to remove lead from the solder in computers. So why not applaud the four out of five manufacturers that complied with this RoHS requirement ahead of their legal requirement to do so. This is something I have never understood about Greenpeace – the quickness to condemn bad behavior before proof is in, the reluctance to praise good behavior even when evidence is before you.
We analysed for a range of BFRs. No we didn't find every single chemical we looked for, but we didn't expect to. This shows that hazardous chemicals can be phased out - as far as we know PBBs are not now incorporated into products (though we wanted to check - you never can be sure that you are given correct info)
Only traces of TBBPA /PDBEs - we found high levels of bromine at 0.19% to 9.4% (that's almost one tenth by weight of bromine!) in around a quarter of all the components and materials tested. Bromine levels are indicative of BFR levels, though do not show the actual chemicals.
I hope that when you design your next materials test of electronics, that you do with an eye to identifying what BFRs are actually present and in what quantities. I too am concerned about BFRs, even if they have not yet been added to the Stockholm Convention controls or LRTAP Protocol. Bromine levels suggest BFRs, but do not indicate them. Let’s prove the link, not just suppose it.
TBBPA - as we said, TBBPA is commonly chemically bound into plastics, and therefore it is not able to extract and test for it. The levels of TBBPA monomer found (and the far higher total bromine levels) may indicate the incorporation of TBBPA into the plastics at far higher levels.
Yes, but TBBPA is not yet restricted by the EU’s RoHS Directive, nor a major national government. Until it is or looks close to being banned, we’ll probably see a slow phaseout of TBBPA. Speaking to this report, can you realistically expect to find zero levels of TBBPA in nations to be governed by the RoHS Directive (which, after all, is where you chose to buy these units tested)?
To obtain such information by analysis is likely to remain very difficult, such that the only option may ultimately be to request such information from the component manufacturers themselves." Why don't manufactures provide consumers such information?
I think manufacturers do need to provide some disclosure over the heavy metal and POP content of their products. The last couple of decades have shown us several cases where disclosure to consumers and shareholders sometimes moved firms to make changes in their products and practices faster than regulation ever did. The question is, what is the most meaningful form and medium? And I mean meaningful not just for GP, SVTC or BAN, but rather for all stakeholders, including (perhaps especially!) John Q. Public.
The one thing we could and did say is their presence gives the potential to generate yet more hazardous chemicals upon disposal.
A couple of points here. First, outside of the rogue recycling operations you keep pointing in China, India and perhaps Nigeria, studies suggest that in most nations end-of-life (EOL) electronics end up in dumps or landfills with common household trash, or in some cases, in “temporary” storage in garages or sheds or other storage spots.
Second, even if we could wave a magic wand and eliminate every iota of heavy metal, PVC and BFRs in all new and used laptops in the world, in all likelihood as long as the conditions and practices GP describes persist in the Chinese and Indian and Nigerian "recycling" operations, the health of the workers and surrounding community will be at risk from something else they burn, crack, shatter or otherwise manipulate improperly and against commonly accepted guidelines.
Do you know of many things in electronics (or a plethora of other consumer products) that DON'T release toxics when burnt in the manner those artesanal recyclers use??? Are we to design all our products on the basis that someone somewhere may ignore common sense, recommended practice and laws, regulations and guidelines and burn something they should not?
So how do manufacturers design electronics (or other products, for that manner) to prevent the careless from hurting themselves and their co-workers and companions?
And should that be their design priority, in truth? Shouldn’t we instead be asking them to focus on making their products easy to recycle by properly licensed and trained recyclers? To substantially reduce their power consumption? To increase their useful product life, and make them easier to “improve” through modular upgrades rather than tossing out our entire computer or other electronic every two years?
"The amount of PVC was low" - The results demonstrate our call for substitution. It is great that some wires do not have PVC coating, this shows it is not necessary - so why is PVC used for others?
Again, PVC is not banned by the RoHS directive or any major national law, so the manufacturers likely will phase this out slowly. In fact, your report showed that they are taking the initiative – why not applaud it? Can you realistically expect total and swift elimination of PVC wire coatings right away, absent a regulatory imperative?
Keith questions if they are a risk outside where the products are dumped or recycled - should we ask Artic polar bears if they object to the PBDEs in their blood as a result of sources far away? International agreements such as the Stockholm Convention that addresses persistent organic pollutants have been created for the very reason that global pollutants do not stay in the country where they are emitted to the environment.
Well, you kept it civil and largely substantive to a point, but couldn’t resist a parting shot, eh?
Are these PBDEs controlled under the Stockholm Convention? Not yet.
The polar bears are endangered by PBDEs released from laptops? That's quite a claim to throw out; I'd like to know more. What study has traced it to laptops (the subject of this study, right?) as the sole or major source? Are laptops really the sole source of BFRs (more so than televisions? Or electrical equipment?)? Or, for that matter, are electronics the sole source, or even the lion’s share? What about textiles? Insulating foams? Office equipment? Plastic housings for other items? Polystyrene production? Foams used in upholstered furniture? Is Greenpeace designing reports and mock websites for these products too?
If there is such a clear linkage between the polar bear problem and PBDEs, why haven’t they been banned from electronics yet?
Let’s be clear here: I believe PBDEs and other BFRs may be classified and controlled as POPs, and eventually be listed in the RoHS Directive and national laws. They are of concern (I worry about the studies I read about their presence in dust and the food chain). But please – skip the gratuitous polar bear zings and make that case more seriously.
----------------------------
Now to the points the Greenpeace response avoided or did NOT address. First and foremost is TRANSPARENCY. GP still does not reveal why those five models, why those five companies, why those two countries, were selected. Or for that matter, why laptops instead of other electronics. Why is that?
I have to wonder about the priorities and sense of proportion here, too. While perhaps not nearly as sexy as attacking MACs and I-pods, in terms of real and present hazards to human health and the environment, shouldn’t GP focus first and more loudly on mercury switches, improper handling of lead-acid batteries, hazardous materials in end-of-life vehicles, the extremely high mercury content in "Chinese batteries" that one finds in every kiosk and small store throughout the developing world? These are far more likely to affect more people worldwide than the laptops GP has chosen to highlight.
If electronics is for some reason more important than all these issues, why laptops? Look at the graphic on page 2 of the UNEP document on e-waste you referred us to. 50% of WEEE is from household appliances, not laptops. 15% is from IT and communications equipment, 10% from TVs, 10% from monitors. So, if your concern is RoHS and WEEE, why do you ignore 85% of the e-waste and focus on less than 15%? And you doubtless know that the amounts of toxics in other equipment taken together is far greater than those in laptops, and that those products are far more ubiquitous throughout the world than laptops (which, after all, are still in a small slice in the market).
So why laptops as first target? Perhaps you have good, sound, technical reasons for it (can’t be the cost and ease of testing!). But nowhere in the Greener Electronics or laptop toxics report have you made that case, so their selection does not seem to be linked to realities on the ground.
If top priority is to make electronics recycling safe for the informal recyclers operating in places such as India and China, you can take out all the heavy metals, BFRs and PVC you wish from electronics, and they will still put their workers and surrounding community at risk because of their practices. Those practices must be addressed more vigorously.
If the problem GP wishes to address is EOL electronic exports that avoid proper treatment and disposal in industrialized countries, shouldn't they focus principally on changing the Basel Convention treatment of EOL electronics?
And let’s keep perspective here. Even if manufacturers succeed in phasing out all the substances GP says are of concern, the old electronics containing them will be floating around in the marketplace and eventually ending up in landfills or those artesanal "recycling" operations in developing countries. If GP and its allies do not spend equal time getting those operations shut down, educating those people about the health and environment risks, and forcing those local governments to do their jobs (protect their citizens), how have they protected those people they speak so frequently and fervently about? Their children, perhaps, after all that old equipment with the materials of concern works their way through the system, but not the people GP uses as its rallying cry today.
"(S)houldn’t GP focus first and more loudly on mercury switches, improper handling of lead-acid batteries, hazardous materials in end-of-life vehicles, the extremely high mercury content in "Chinese batteries" that one finds in every kiosk and small store throughout the developing world?
I guess you are aware that question is rhetorical. :D
The herd like mentality of both online and traditional press is the reason Greenpeace targeted Apple. It generates headlines. Now that we have the results of their own tests, we know for a fact that GP was grandstanding. It's a simple as that. Apple is in the press constantly. GP gets free publicity by slagging Apple, and facts be damned.
Thank you, treehugger, for publishing this. Environmentalists do themselves a lot more favours by being honest about criticism than denying it and attacking critics.
It is crucial for the very credibility of genuine environmentalists to be willing to hold those they normally agree with to a similar level of scrutiny to those they disagree with; I find this example to be a very refreshing from what I normally see in many sites.