The race for greener cell phones and PCs

Inside PCIJ (http://www.pcij.org/blog/)
Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico on 15 July 2007 at 9:38 pm

CONSIDER the following facts: There are 500 million obsolete computers in the U.S. alone. Some 130 million cell phones are disposed of annually while 20 to 24 million TV sets and computers are stored annually in homes and offices. Meanwhile, only 10 percent of unwanted and obsolete computers are recycled.

These, reports the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), make electronic waste as the fastest growing part of the waste stream. The problem, says SVTC, has already reached crisis level as a result of the sheer volume of e-waste, no thanks to rapid obsolescence in electronic products, generated globally everyday.

And electronic discards are not your ordinary pile of trash. Composed of more than a thousand different substances, many of them toxic like lead, mercury, and cadmium, e-waste happens to be hazardous, and can pose serious threats to people’s health and environmental safety. (see Second Life for Dead PCs)

For this reason, groups like SVTC have constantly challenged the electronics manufacturing industry to employ green technologies in designing their products so that they are toxic-free, easily recycled, and allow for repairs and upgrades. Governments have also taken electronics firms to task, notable of which is the European Commission’s directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) holding manufacturers legally responsible for the reuse and recycling of their products.

To be sure, electronics companies have been rising to the challenge with computer take-back schemes and the extended producer responsibility (EPR) concept becoming the norm today in the electronics industry. Still, the industry is far from totally being green — that is, toxic-free.

This was the assessment of Greenpeace, which recently released its 4th “Guide to Greener Electronics,” a public ranking system of the environmental practices of electronics manufacturers. Developed in August 2006, the ranking system rates leading mobile phone and computer companies based on their global policies and practices on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they reach their end-of-life.

The latest ranking shows an industry-wide improvement in environmental policies with 12 of the 14 electronics industry leaders assessed since last year garnering scores of five or above (out of a total ten points).

Pacing the industry giants is mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, largely for phasing out the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in its handsets. Nokia has consistently led the quarterly ratings since the release of the first greener electronics guide, except last March 2007 when it dropped to second spot.

Tied at second place are Dell and Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, which dropped a notch for its unclear global take-back policy. They are followed by Sony-Ericsson and Samsung with limited recycling programs and good, though uneven performance with regard to removing toxic chemicals in their products.

Erstwhile bottom dweller Apple Computer had the most notable improvement, moving up four places primarily because of Steve Jobs’s pledge for a “Greener Apple” by phasing out PVC and other chemicals from Apple products.

Sony and LG Electronics are at the bottom of the ranking, both companies penalized for “double standards” on their waste policies. While Sony and LG support Individual Producer Responsibility elsewhere in the world, both were found to be part of a coalition in the United States opposing producer responsibility laws and calling for consumers, instead of producers, to pay for the recycling of e-waste.

Since Greenpeace started its public rankings, electronics companies have also been providing information on whether their products are free of the most harmful chemicals used by the industry. As of March 2007, Panasonic, for example, had many examples of 100-percent PVC-free products on the market, including DVD players and recorders, home cinemas and video players. The company also now provides a list of products that are PVC-free.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, to some extent, are introducing increasing numbers of models that are also free from PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

Moreover, companies are now providing more and more extensive voluntary programs and information to customers on what to do with discarded electronics, with leading computer manufacturers now going public with their recycling percentages.

Dell reports a recycling rate of 12 percent of its past sale. Hewlett Packard reports 10 percent; Apple 9.5 percent, and Motorola 3.32 percent. Lenovo’s rate, based on weight on weight of shipment and depending on the year of sales data, varies from 0.72 percent (2006) and 8.8 percent (1998).

“The world has benefited immensely from rapid developments in the electronics industry but the corresponding hazardous e-waste it has generated has negative environmental and health consequences, particularly when they end up in dump yards of poorer countries (like the Philippines),” says Beau Baconguis, Greenpeace Southeast Asia toxics campaigner.

With the leading consumer electronic companies going public with their environmental policies, Baconguis is hopeful that this will put the spotlight on the industry and serve as a pressure on other companies to go public and improve their existing environmental practices.

But she acknowledges that it’s still a long way to go for many more companies before they can achieve a perfect score. “As it is, the challenge for companies to eliminate all hazardous substances from their products and to institute effective take-back and recycling policies still remains.”