Electronic Boogie

Greenpeace releases another ranking of tech companies' environmental records

Posted at 4:09 PM on 21 Sep 2007

Greenpeace has released the fifth version of its Guide to Greener Electronics, and lauds the tech industry for making "great improvements" since the first scorecard hit the scene in August 2006. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Dell took the top three spots this time around; Apple, the CEO of which was rankled by his company's dead-last ranking in April, is now solidly tied with Hewlett-Packard for second-to-last, ahead of Panasonic. The report, released yesterday, noted that HP is "in free fall" on the list; also yesterday, coincidentally, HP launched an effort to improve e-waste recycling in Africa.

sources: Yahoo! News, SciDev.Net
straight to the report: Guide to Greener Electronics
see also, in Grist: Tech companies go for the green, U.N. launches global partnership to combat unhealthy e-waste habits, Leading tech companies bury the hatchet to improve energy efficiency

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Comments: (1 comment)

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E-waste recycling is a giant boondoggle

How did the gullible environmental public come to accept e-waste as some kind of progress?

E-waste is the biggest gift to the garbage industry since the invention of the garbage incinerator.

The name says it all: anything that is described as intrinsically "waste" is a garbage designation.

Zero Waste is the name of the theory that has made the recycling story obsolete. Instead of creating garbage, then picking thru it for a scrap here or there, redesign all products so that no waste is produced in the first place. Is there anything difficult about that idea?

What is needed is not more garbage to be sifted thru for the merest, most minor and insignificant materials (a little steel, a bit of glass, a smidgeon of gold and a cupful of copper) but to demand the redesign of all electronics so that their high level functions can be reused over and over.

The recyclers are collaborators in this boondoggle because they depend on a surcharge on garbage and so the more garbage there is, the more money (a pittance only) they make.

When are people going to wake up and stop falling for these recycling/garbage inspired programs of gross waste.

So long as the public is thrown into a tizzy, from which all rational thought is banished, the moment the word "toxic" is uttered, the propaganda will work just fine.
Paul Palmer

www.zerowasteinstitute.org
http://gettingtozerowaste.com

by Polamca at 11:36 AM on 24 Sep 2007

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