Apple’s Beryllium Cremation Damages Environment?

I used to want a spiffy MacBook Pro, but thanks to my friend, who works at Greenpeace, I now know that Apple allows their old, poisonous techie waste to be dumped in countries such as China, India and Pakistan. According to Greenpeace, Apple is one of the worst mobile and PC manufacturers when it comes to eliminating waste and recycling. Greenpeace’s “Guide to Greener Electronics” ranked Apple as worst and Levono, a Chinese based PC manufacturer, as the best. That’s because Levono aims to stop using polyvinylchloride (PVC) in their products by 2009 and provide global recycling programs for their old systems – two things Greenpeace says Apple has failed to do.

At issue is electronic waste, or e-waste: the mp3 players, phones and computers we toss out every time something smaller, faster or cuter comes on the market. E-waste gets exported to distant lands where people are willing to dispose of or recycle the waste for profit. These far-off waste centers often burn plastic in the open, dump acids into rivers and contribute to toxic landfills.

Two big culprits are PVC and beryllium. PVC, a plastic common in cables and computer cases, produces dioxins during manufacturing and again if it gets incinerated. Dioxins are carcinogenic and harm the developmental and reproductive systems. Beryllium is a steel-gray metal that strengthens the connectors and plugs on motherboards. It’s a carcinogen, too, causing lung cancer, as well as skin conditions such as poor wound healing and wartlike bumps.

Greenpeace wants to change this.

The dirt on Apple showed up last fall, here and here. It all started when Greenpeace printed its first edition of “Guide to Greener Electronics” in August of 2006. While Apple says they are committed to eliminating PVC, they haven’t specified a timeline. Furthermore, while Apple has take-back initiatives (offering discounts on new models with the return of an old one) they don’t exist for every product. Apple now ranks the lowest in the two subsequent editions of the Greenpeace guide because of its persistent lack of progress in these areas.

In an effort to persuade Apple to embrace greenness, Greenpeace launched an online campaign called “Green my Apple” last September. It’s a grassroots campaign that advertises Apple’s misguided practices, which you can view on their ProCreate page. YouTube viral videos have popped up: a spoof of Apple’s “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ad campaign and footage of e-waste landfills in Asia, provided by the “Green my Apple” campaign. Flickr users have posted photos of themselves hugging Macs with the “Green my Apple” logo stating that while they “love their Macs,” they wish it “came in green.”

But the apple peeler can cut both ways. The viral videos and photos seem to be provoking debate about whether Apple is really so environmentally irresponsible. A YouTube comment toward the landfill footage posted in March asked, “Why waste their energy and resources on a company with 2% market share? Apple has a pretty good takeback policy. But why target Apple?” Similar questions popped up on the Flickr photos of “Green my Apple.” One commenter asked, “Why single Apple out? Why not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc? ALL computer companies use minute quantities of those ‘dangerous substances’ to reduce heat in the insides of the computer.”

After the publication in April of the “Guide to Greener Electronics,” an Apple spokesperson rebutted that Apple indeed has an environmental track record and has made great efforts to eliminate or reduce toxic components, such as lead, from their products. The spokesperson said Apple has also worked toward energy efficiency by creating products with lower power requirements and by improving power management software. According to Apple’s website, iPod power adapters already exceed current Energy Star requirements as well as stricter California rules scheduled for July of next year.

The Environmental Protection Agency ranks Apple desktop and notebook computers the best in class according to their assessment tool, the Electronic Product Environmental Assestment Tool (EPEAT). I’m a little inclined to agree with Jeff Smykil at Ars technica that Greenpeace makes Apple look worse than any other corporation out there when Greenpeace probably has their own problems.

The only lesson I got out of this investigation is to at least check out the environmental policies of the products that I buy. At least Apple has something, like improved energy efficiency and a take-back program in the first place, so I probably shouldn’t feel as bad about it and neither should you.