Greenpeace names Apple as worst offender

Apple is still using brominated flame retardants and PVCs

Environmental group Greenpeace has listed Apple at the bottom of its latest Green Electronics Guide, while praising Lenovo for recent improvements. 

The Greenpeace programme looks at recycling and toxic content policies for various electronics manufacturers.

Lenovo came last in the first Green Electronics Guide published in August 2006. Apple ranked 11th out of 14 vendors in August but sank to the bottom spot in December. 

Greenpeace praised Lenovo's recycling policies, particularly its practice of reporting the amount of recycled equipment as a percentage of total sales.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell and Samsung rounded out the top five in the latest rankings. 

Greenpeace claimed that Apple had failed to make any progress whatsoever since the rankings were first launched.

In a separate Green My Apple campaign Greenpeace is rallying consumers to lobby Apple to ban the use of certain toxic chemicals such as brominated flame retardants and hexavalent chromium.

The pressure group also wants Apple to beef up its recycling initiatives. 

Apple's Environment website states that brominated flame retardants, lead, mercury and PVCs are "restricted" but not banned. The company claims that it has completely baned hexavalent chromium from its products.

The company vehemently denied Greenpeace's assessment that it is not environmentally friendly. "We disagree with Greenpeace's rating and the criteria it chose," a company spokesperson told vnunet.com. 

"Apple has a strong environmental track record and has led the industry in restricting and banning toxic substances."

The spokesperson pointed to the Green Electronic Council's Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) ranking, which places Apple's iMac, MacPro and MacBook products at or near the top in its list of eco-friendly computers. 

The EPEAT test uses IEEE environmental standards to index the amount of toxic and recyclable materials in the device and the way that disposal is handled.