Apple Goes Off Green

“Apple has abruptly announced that it is withdrawing from a green computer certification scheme prompting San Francisco city authorities to drop its products.

The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certifies desktops, laptops and monitors against environmental criteria agreed by the industry and supported by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The 1000-plus products from over 300 manufacturers registered with the scheme are more energy efficient, easier to upgrade and recycle and contain lower levels of heavy metals like cadmium, lead and mercury.

While the scheme only currently covers desktops, laptops and monitors, the inclusion of TVs, printers and servers is expected soon. There are, however, no explicit plans yet to add smartphones or tablet computers like Apple’s iPad.

Apple’s decision to withdraw from EPEAT is all the more surprising because it was one of the companies originally involved in drawing up the rating criteria and has come in for increasing criticism in recent times over its environmental profile.

Energy Efficiency News

As to why, one tech reporter thinks it has to do with up coming offerings in which batteries are fused to frames, making recycling not meet common-sense guidlines.  e.g. needing heat-guns to get them out.  For more, listen to Newsy

Nice going Apple.  You have plenty of workers in China.  These un-recyclable devices can be sent to their poor cousins and smashed apart like other US cast-off electronics.  What’s that called?  Externalized expenses?