Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Greenpeace this week said that PC maker Lenovo was the world's most environmentally friendly electronics firm, thanks to dramatic improvements in its hardware recycling efforts. Meanwhile, Mac-maker Apple, which has global warming guru Al Gore on its board of directors, came in dead last on the list of 14 firms Greenpeace highlighted.

Last place Apple lost marks for its toxic chemical use and poor recycling efforts. In fact, Greenpeace is so disturbed by Apple's poor marks that it's set up a special Web site describing the problems. "Why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of [Apple's] product line contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned?" the site reads. "A cutting edge company shouldn't be cutting lives short by exposing thousands of children in the developing world to dangerous chemicals."

Apple just doesn't prioritize environmental concerns. Sure, they have a nice Environment section on their website. But it's not linked from the front page, and it's hard to find unless you know where to look. Of course it says how great Apple's policies are. But if you look under the hood, Apple's policies are as ugly as a beige box circa 1989.

Labels: Apple, Science