Greenpeace has recently put a great deal of pressure on Al Gore, the former US vice president and director of Apple, to use what influence he was to talk Apple into eventually removing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardant (BFR) from all of their products.
PVC allows plastic to be extremely flexible, and is mostly used in the outer coatings of wires, and BFR coats motherboards to help them not randomly burst into flames – the CPU puts out a great deal of heat, after all.
Greenpeace has been also publicly ‘scolding' Apple, like a mother, and comparing it to Dell and Hewlett-Packard in a very unattractive way. However, these companies use PVC and BFR in their computers! The reason they're ‘better' then Apple is that they agreed to do something about it in the far future.
Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple, has released information on Apple's environmental policies, entitled ‘A Greener Apple'. He says that they're investigating the matter, but they feel they are either ahead of many companies, or will be very soon.
Jobs says that nearly 3 million iPods have been shipped to date with a BFR-free motherboard, and Apple has been researching alternative, safer methods for a while now.
The thing that gets most people? Apple has promised that by the end of next year, all products they sell will be PVC and BFR free, which is a smack in the face to both Dell and HP – Dell has promised to rid itself by 2009, and HP will release it's plans on how to rid itself of these chemicals by the end of 2007. |
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