Greenpeace

I am appalled by shoddy ranking that was used in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/green-electronics-guide-ewaste250806 I have worked in the IT sector as a materials consultant for over a decade and I have a very good understanding on who the 'high scorers' on environmental design really are. Some VERY basic items that Greenpeace have got wrong: 1. HP and Dell are still shipping non-RoHS compliant (lead containing) products in to the US - check their websites. http://www.dell.com/content/learnmore/learnmore.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=corp&~id=inthebox&~line=desktops&~mode=popup&~series=optix 2. Nokia's substance list only 'monitors' PVC use. It does not ban or even restrict its use. http://www.nokia.com/A4126711 Not only that, but Nokia even exempts accessories from a PVC phase out. Accessories are where the greatest quantities of PVC tend to be found. Greenpeace's ranking calls this "Good." Whatever the Nokia boys told Greenpeace is not what Nokia is telling the supply-chain through its substance specification. 3. Nokia was once the largest distributor of CRT containing TV's, before their cell phone days. They still refuse to take-back these heavy lead-containing TV products. 4. HP used its lobbying machinery last April to persuade the EU Commission to allow an additional exemption to the RoHS ban on hexavalent chromium. The Commission caved-in....so now we have to put up with toxicity of hexachrome as a result of HP. 5. Dell gets top marks for committing to phase out PVC and TBBA (a flame retardant) by 2009 if it is cost effective for them to do so. Big deal, Dell may not even be around by 2009 and if it's cost effective to use the alternative materials then of course everyone will use them - so what's so great about that commitment? What exactly have Dell done right now that is tangible evidence of eliminating substances? It certainly isn't RoHS compliance, or eliminating cheap bromine containing plastics from their housing materials. Ever checked to see how many cables and wires you need to hook up a Dell? Yep you guessed it..... all those cheap wires are made from PVC. 5. As a materials consultant, I know for a fact that Apple has by far the strictest eco-material specification in the industry. Greenpeace's gripe is that Apple doesn't publish their specification, but everybody knows that Apple has to keep its design related specifications hush, hush....that's why Apple maintains its leading position as an innovator for the industry. 6. Out of all the IT companies listed in the ranking, Apple is the only company to be RoHS compliant worldwide across its major IT product lines and is the only company to have come up with clean wireless (PVC-free) applications across all of its products and is the only company that has ceased shipping CRT monitors altogether. I guess Greenpeace is targeting Apple because of its notoriety....cos it certainly isn't as a result of Apple's environmental standing relative to Dell, Nokia and HP. I am so disillusioned by the amateur nature of this campaign that I have decided to stop my donations to Greenpeace and put them in to WWF instead. Stephen, Madrid