Electronics companies have made significant environmental improvements to their products in the last two years but still have some ways to go, according to a Greenpeace report.
Rankings by the non-profit found that more electronics products than ever are free of potentially hazardous chemicals, and most products evaluated meet or exceed Energy Star efficiency standards.
But Greenpeace said companies’ “lifecycle management”, including use of recycled plastics, is still wanting. Take-back practices have shown some improvement, Greenpeace said.
The organization’s third Green Electronics Survey ranked desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, monitors, mobile phones, smartphones and televisions.
Laptops performed particularly poorly, with the best scoring product in that category achieving only 67% of possible points. The best-scoring monitor, in contrast, scored 87%.
“This means that the best scoring notebook includes fewer of all the available green features for notebooks, while the best scoring monitor has less to learn from its competitors,” the report noted.
Greenpeace said electronic companies are clearly phasing out the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) – substances for which Greenpeace served penalty points in previous editions of the rankings. All mobile phones ranked were PVC-free.
None of the laptops ranked were completely PVC or BFR-free, but Greenpeace noted that Apple’s new MacBook Pro is free of those chemicals. Apple chose not to participate in the survey.
“As Apple’s MacBook managed to eliminate these last uses of PVC and become the first 100% PVC-free notebook computer, there is no longer a technical hurdle for the rest of the industry to overcome,” Greenpeace said.
Read the complete article here!
Source: Environmental Leader