Apple Computer Tops List For Environmental Responsibility -- But There's Plenty Of Room For Improvement

According to the Clean Computer Campaign, the high tech industry is the fastest-expanding industrial sector in North America. Over 50% of US households now own a computer and the average life span of a computer is falling to about two years [happily somewhat longer for Macs!]. This means that the problem of computer waste is building. Last year over 12 million computers were obsoleted and within four years over 315 million computers in the USA will become obsolete. Most computer scrap is currently landfilled although the majority, three-quarters of all computers ever bought in the USA, are sitting in peopleÕs homes basements, attics or cupboards because consumers donÕt know what to do with them.

That certainly goes for our house, where by rough count there are about a dozen Macs of various vintages stashed here and there. Four are in active use; three more of them still work; and the rest are carcasses and parts machines.

This Christmas morning millions more new computers will be unwrapped under millions of Christmas trees, creating another new wave of obsolete machines to be stored in basements, attics and cupboards, sent to the landfill, or even or shipped to China, to be disassembled and then burned.

According to a recent article by Vincent J. Schodolski of the Chicago Tribune, up to 75 percent of all the high-tech equipment made in the past 10 years - is now out of service and creating a major disposal problem. Obviously, this is wasteful and an inefficient use of natural resources.

The San Jose, California-based Campaign for Responsible Technology has called for the mandatory recycling of old computer equipment as well as a phase-out of several toxic chemicals used in the production of computers and semiconductors.

Until now, says Mr. Schodolski, there has been no efficient means of disposing of most obsolete electronic equipment, but there are now efforts being made to collect and recycle old computers and other discarded electronics.

Old computers can be updated and resold, or dismantled so that the materials they contain can be recycled. The Campaign for Responsible Technology alleges that the computer industry's "planned obsolescence" policy of frequently introducing upgraded products is making the computer disposal problem worse, and the group wants U.S. computer manufacturers held responsible for recycling their own products.

One solution would be to build modular machines that could be upgraded to incorporate new innovations and developments in speed and features while retaining the other parts of the computer. Processor upgrade cards are a good example of this, but Apple, unfortunately, has appeared to be increasingly hostile to the processor upgrade concept recently, as evidenced by the infamous G4 ROM block in a firmware upgrade released for the blue & white desktop G3s earlier this year, and in the presumably deliberate positioning of ROMs on the processor daughtercards of G3 Series PowerBooks, making them non processor-upgradable for all intents and purposes.

There is also the environmental issue of toxic substances contained in thrown-away computer equipment. CRT monitors, for instance, have lead embedded in their glass to serve as a radiation shield. Motherboards and CPUs may contain traces of toxic mercury and chromium.

Unfortunately, Mr. Schodolski cites a National Safety Council estimate that 11 percent of personal computer processors that went obsolete in 1998 were recycled, over the next two years about 3.4 million more computers will be obsoleted than will be shipped by manufacturers.

While there are companies in the PC orbit that buy old computers, upgrade and refurbish them, and resell them, I've never heard of this sort of thing being done on a significant scale with Macs, which are much less modular in concept than PCs, and therefore less upgradable.

The Clean Computer Campaign is a project of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition that assesses hazardous materials in products and the take-back policy of major computer corporations operating in the USA and Canada to see how responsible these corporations were to their consumers regarding three issues:

• the use of hazardous material use in computers
• the ability to upgrade oneÕs computer
• the ability to return old computers back to the producer for safe reuse and recycling

Surveys were sent to 21 major computer producers to determine if some producers were more accountable than their competitors regarding the types of materials used in their products and their attitudes towards waste management of their products. They were asked to respond to multiple choice questions within three weeks. The questions focused on:

• the corporationÕs policy of hazardous material use and phase out
• component or product take back from their customers
• use of recycled material in new products, disposal practices including the export of scrap overseas
• the corporationÕs view of how extensive their responsibility should be for their end of life products.

The Clean Computer Campaign (CCC) says that only one corporation, Unisys, responded by filling in the questionnaire (which can be read on the CCC Website). Another corporation, IBM, responded by sending their end of year report. All other corporations did not respond (Shame on Apple). Extensive follow up phone calls a month after the initial mailing achieved insignificant information and response.

Consequently the CCC resorted to survey of company Websites in an attempt to determine:

• Information about their hazardous materials and/or recycling and take- back policy was searched for under general corporate information and Services and Support for customers. This sometimes linked to corporate reports or even an environment link

• A search was also done on each internal search engine and glossary using a combination of the following the words: environment; health and safety; hazardous materials; flame retardants; mercury; recycling; product stewardship; disposal; take-back; upgrade, design for environment

• Finally, a quick search of product specification information revealed the availability of any more information.

A simple scoring system out of 5 points is used to denote the information found on each web site.

Take back of old or unwanted products
No information given or no operational policy 0
Some component take-back or take-back for large customers 1
Full take-back of end of life equipment from all customers 2

Upgrades:

No information given or unable to find 0
Product specific information given 1

Hazardous material information:
No information given 0
Some information given; some reference in corporate policy 1
Product specific information available 2

Here are the results listed in order of quality and amount of information for the consumer. Points are scored out of a possible total of 5. Ê

- AppleÊ 4
- IBM 4
- Compaq/Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)Ê 3
- Hewlett Packard 3
- Fujitsu 2
- Toshiba 2
- Gateway 2
- Dell 2
- Sony USA 2
- Sharp 2
- Unisys 2
- Matsushita/Panasonic 1
- Packard-Bell/NEC 1
- Samsung 1
- NCR 1
- Hitachi 1
- Daewoo 0
- Acer 0
- AST 0

The CCC notes that The European Union is facing a 6 million ton/year electronic waste problem, and is currently attempting to pass legislation that would make producers responsible for post-consumer electrical and electronic waste. This means producers or importers of electrical and electronic goods would have to pay the waste management costs for all their end of life products as well as phase out certain hazardous materials in new products by 2004.

In Germany, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of some consumer products have been legally responsible for recovering and recycling a percentage of paper, plastic, glass, tin, cardboard, etc., packaging materials, newspapers, and non-durable products. Reportedly, when German consumers buy something, they can either remove and leave the packaging at the point of sale, or return it later to the retailer for disposal.

The Dutch also designate specified products and packaging materials that businesses must recover and dispose of or recycle if possible.

However, the CCC says that European draft legislation on computer recycling is being challenged by the American Electronics Association and the Electronics Industry Association, who claim such requirements would hinder the export of American products to Europe and thus constitute a barrier to free trade under World Trade Organization ( WTO) rules. All computer corporations operating in the USA are members of the American Electronics Association.

The CCC notes that Apple Computer has an extensive Website on its environmental policy and gives the best consumer information on materials used in each computer model. Each computer model has an accompanying APES table of information, which stands for Apple Product Environmental Specifications, and measures a range of attributes against eco-labels and other criteria. The attributes encompass environmental policy and management; product design; batteries; energy consumption; noise characteristics; emissions; electrical safety; ergonomics; packaging; and recycling. The product design category encompasses detailed information about hazardous heavy metals, brominated flame retardants, ozone depleting substances and dioxin generating materials. These and other listings are then assessed against five different audits. The results are presented in a matrix for each model. Their Design for Environment program aims to improve on recyclability of materials, the elimination of banned, restricted, toxic or hazardous constituents and the improvement of material and energy conservation. Extensive information on upgrades is included for each model.

The CCC notes that Apple takes back batteries and toner cartridges but has no system in place for return of its computer products, but rather advises consumers to donate them or contact their local authority for information about electronic waste disposal options.

The CCC Website says that except for Apple Computer and the description of IBMÕs Aptiva model, detailed consumer information about the environmental attributes and types of materials used in specific computer models was not available. In some cases corporations list their generic Design for Environment policy and goals and mention specific examples of hazardous material phase outs. In other cases no mention is made about any environmental criteria and the web site exists solely to place orders.

Producer responsibility for computer take-back is limited to large buyers and even then only a few corporations offer this service. Take-back service for private households extends only to batteries and printer toner cartridges and this is practiced by only a few companies. Some corporations mention their take-back or asset recovery centers in Europe and Japan where national legislation has been passed or is pending for producer take- back of all waste from electrical and electronic equipment. There is very little information available to North American consumers about their recycling or disposal options for out of date computers.

The CCC suggests that consumers who:

• Want information about hazardous materials in you computer

• Want to know what producers are doing to clean up their products

• Want the producer of their computer to take back their out of date products and recycle them

• Want the same take-back service from their computer producer that consumers have in Holland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Japan

should:

1. Send an email to their computer manufacturer demanding to know what they are doing to phase out hazardous materials in their products and when they will offer you a take-back service.

2. Send an email to their computer manufacturer and ask them to stop supporting the American Electronics Association lobby against European efforts to clean up the electronic industry.

3. Contact their stateÕs Department of Environment or provincial Minister of Environment and demand legislation that will make producers financially and physically responsible for post consumer product waste.

These environmental issues related to computers will come to the fore more and more in the new century (which technically doesn't start for another 12 months, but that's another matter). Possibly, responsible policies on ethical disposal of obsolete computer equipment will result in higher initial computer prices, although efficient collection and recycling of materials could help defray some of that cost.

The trend toward LCD displays in desktop machines as well as laptops is will also have green side effects, since CRT monitors make up such a large percentage of the physical bulk of computer waste (as well as the lead toxicity).

It is unfortunate that the North American computer industry has chosen to foot-drag rather than get behind computer recycling initiatives. It's nice to see that Apple is the best of a relatively bad lot on this score, but there's lots of room for improvement.

Visit the Clean Computer Campaign web site at http://www.svtc.org for more information about Producer Responsibility and hazardous materials in computers.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! Charles W. Moore

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Saturday, 04-Jul-2009 23:59:57 EDT