I'm confused. Greenpeace's "toxic technology" campaign slams Apple as an environmental laggard. But I'm seeing growing evidence on the web (provided by a materials specialist from the IT sector) that Apple has the strictest substances restrictions in the industry, it just doesn't publish it due to its world famous secrecy around product design. It has also been brought to light that HP and Dell are not as great as the Greenpeace ranking system makes them out to be. HP and Dell are still shipping lead containing PC's and CRT's on a global scale. Apple seems to be the only company that has eliminated lead and heavy lead containing CRT's worldwide.
Looking more closely at Greenpeace's scoring system it appears that companies scored highest when they gave future commitments to eliminate PVC and bromine. Apple gets a low score for not making these commitments. Surely, a distant commitment from a company that can't even meet the EU RoHS substance ban directive is a commitment that shouldn't be ranked. Nokia gets top marks from Greenpeace for PVC commitments, but its 2006 substances specification doesn't even ban PVC http://www.nokia.com/A4126711.
Apple has been ranked by the US Environmental Protection Agency as having the top environmental performing desktops, portables and monitors in the industry. Perhaps Apple just didn't want to give Greenpeace a commitment because it felt that design actions speak louder than words.
I'm sticking with Apple products, until I see a ranking system that tells me what is "actually happening" in practice, rather than what large corporations say "might happen in the future".
Chloe