Greenpeace is using its latest green-ratings guide to press consumer electronics companies to do more than just clean up their own act.
The 14th quarterly "Guide to Greener Electronics," (PDF) which rates hardware makers on chemical waste, e-waste, and recycling efforts, now assesses each company's public efforts on environmental issues.
The report, issued Thursday, considers whether a company actively lobbies for industrywide laws that would prevent other companies from using environmentally damaging materials, as part of their corporate sustainability obligations.
(Credit:
Greepeace)
Specifically, Greenpeace said companies should support a new version of the European Union's RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics). The update would ban brominated flame retardants (BFRs), chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs), and PVC vinyl plastic from being used in the manufacturing of electronics. (The regulation already restricts how much lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants can be used.)
As far as who's the greenest, Nokia still ranks at No. 1, but Greenpeace reduced the company's overall score by one point for "failing to do proactive lobbying" for the RoHS revisions.
The strategy brings an interesting idea to the forefront. With the new criteria, Greenpeace is essentially attempting to harness consumer buying-power to press private industry to pressure politicians.
But does this strategy really work? When picking out a new cell phone or computer, does the average consumer's thought process include a rundown of whether a company has stopped using BFRs in their products and has lobbied to prevent other companies from using them too.
Still, if no one can use a cheap-but-polluting manufacturing material, the playing field is leveled. Lobbying for a revised RoHS could be a win-win for companies that would like to eliminate the use of certain substances but fear creating an advantage for their competition.
Greenpeace asserts there's good reason for the change.
"The use of harmful chemicals in electronic products prevents their safe recycling once the products are discarded. Given the increasing evidence of climate change and the urgency of addressing this issue, Greenpeace has added new energy criteria to encourage electronics companies to improve their corporate policies and practices," Greenpeace said in a statement.
... Read MoreCorrection at 9:20 a.m. PDT: The time span for Office Depot's figures is one year.
Last year, Office Depot recycled almost 1.5 million pounds of old tech equipment through its service for consumers, the company said Wednesday.
That sounds like a lot. It makes you realize how quickly all those landfills must be filling up since that figure represents only the junk from people who 1) actually bother to recycle, and 2) chose to go with Office Depot's recycling program.
For a comparison, I decided to check how other company-sponsored recycling programs are doing. Unfortunately, as sustainability expert Kevin Wilhelm told CNET, there is yet to be a standard way for companies to calculate such statistics. What's included in recycling statistics varies from company to company, but the data I dug up offers a rough idea of what's going on in this arena.
Staples, an Office Depot competitor, began offering an in-store recycling service in May 2007. It charges $10 per large item regardless of where you originally bought it; recycles small items like keyboards, mice, and speakers for free; and offers $3 in Staples rewards for Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark or Dell brand printer cartridges.
By the end of the 2007, Staples had recycled 2 million pounds of tech junk, including almost 24 million printer cartridges in the U.S., according to the company's 2007 sustainability report.
What about the computer manufacturers themselves?
Hewlett-Packard has had a recycling program since 1987 and in January 2009 launched a new program that offers money for old tech equipment. As of June 2007, the company had recycled more than 1 billion pounds of electronics and printer cartridges and expanded to include consumer programs in 50 countries. HP's new goal is to reach 2 billion pounds by the end of 2010.
Unlike Office Depot, which asks customers for pay $5, $10, or $15 for a box they can fill with everything from printers to digital cameras, HP offers credit that can be put toward the purchase of an HP product.
Apple has consumer recycling programs in 95 percent of the countries where it sells its computers. In 2007, it collected about "21 million pounds of e-waste," according to the company's 2008 environmental report.
Dell offers consumer recycling programs worldwide. In the U.S., it's free. Between 2006 and 2008, Dell recycled about 255 million pounds of its own products. Its goal is to recover about 275 million pounds by the end of 2009, according to its 2008 Global Corporate Responsibility Report.
Big Blue seems to have recycled the most, or at least calculated the most.
Between 1995 (when it began keeping track) and the end of 2007, IBM "collected and recovered (resold, refurbished, or recycled)" more than 1.5 billion pounds of product and product waste worldwide, according to the company's latest corporate sustainability report.
In the U.S., IBM offers consumer recycling programs on a state-by-state basis.
While recycling tech equipment is definitely a positive way to do your part for the environment, it's also important to keep your computer information secure. Always remember to properly wipe computers clean of your personal information before giving away or recycling them. Coincidentally, CNET's Seth Rosenblatt did a piece on wiping hard drives clean earlier this week.
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