Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

An old Philips TV at a scrap yard in Ghana

A Greenpeace Europe update:

Last week we broke the shocking story about what actually happens to electronic waste in Europe; instead of being safely recycled in the UK or Europe where it is bought, much of it is instead being exported as ’second-hand goods’ to places like Nigeria, China and India. Once there it’s either sold for scrap, illegally dumped, or broken apart for recycling by some of the poorest people in the country, with no safety measures to protect them from the dangerous toxic chemicals like mercury, cadmium and lead which the e-waste contains.
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Last week we called out Apple on the lack of any environmental info on the new iPhone 3G. Pre-launch publicity and specs for the new MacBook Air and iMac included info on how Apple was making progress on eliminating the worst toxic chemicals by the end of 2008. There was none of this for the iPhone, but last night we noticed a late addition to the iPhone tech specs:

iPhone 3G embodies Apple’s continuing environmental progress. It is designed with the following features to reduce environmental impact:

- PVC-free handset
- PVC-free headphones
- PVC-free USB cable
- Bromine-free printed circuit boards
- Mercury-free LCD display
- Majority of packaging made from post-consumer recycled fiberboard and biobased materials
- Power adapter outperforms strictest global energy efficiency standards

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With typical hype and fanfare, Apple’s latest iPhone 3G is hitting stores on Friday. It promises to be faster, better and cheaper, but what have we heard about it being greener than its predecessor? Crickets.

An Aucklander by the name of Jonny Gladwell is aiming to be the world’s first iPhone 3G customer by lining up to snare his at 12.01 tomorrow night, however, another group is doing the same in New York in an attempt to use the attention this misguided fad of lining up for consumer products brings by doing it to promote organic produce.

A worthy cause no doubt, but that is as far as the “green” coverage is going. Well, that’s not entirely true. There is a rumour that the iPhone will be partly packaged in potato starch trays instead of plastic. Aside from that rather dull, and un-revolutionary (Motorola already uses them) potato titbit there’s no info yet on how green the actual phone will be. Read more »