Activists clamor for ‘greener’ Apple
By Colleen Taylor -- EDN, January 9, 2007
As this year's highly anticipated MacWorld Expo gets under way in San Francisco this week, not everyone that has flocked to the city in the name of all things Apple Computer is a fan of the company's practices.
At Apple's downtown San Francisco store just blocks away from the convention center where eager Apple devotees gathered Monday to kick off the week-long convention, activists from environmental organization Greenpeace projected giant images of the Asian scrap yards where the organization said many of Apple's electronic products end up at the end of their lives. Images of electronics being melted down, taken apart and releasing toxic chemicals were displayed above the front of the Apple store as part of Greenpeace's campaign to push Apple to become the "green option" for consumer electronics.
According to Greenpeace, e-waste is the fastest growing source of toxic waste, much of which the organization claims ends up in the hands of children working in toxic scrap yards in India and other developing countries. A recently updated Greenpeace ranking of electronics companies showed that Apple is in last place among the 14 largest electronics companies in committing to phase out harmful and toxic substances and instituting recycling programs of products that have reached the end of their lifecycles.
"Apple is a leader in creative thinking and design, and we are encouraging them to expand that innovative know-how to making all of their products green," Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace USA's toxics campaign, said in a statement. "Our purpose here is to remind them that making products with toxic chemicals in them is not an option."
Apple could not be reached for comment.
