Progressive Wednesday

Even the good ones can be better

May 1st, 2007 by Eric

Let me just say, I love Macs. I’m writing this article on one. A dual processor, 867mhz, G4 tower to be exact. I don’t think it’s crashed twice in the nearly five years that I’ve had it and it still runs like the day I got it. It doesn’t hurt my ego that Apple is considered to be one of the most progressive corporations in the country by bluefund.org.  But they’re not perfect. They’re still a corporation. They’re still worried about their bottom line.

Apple is at the front of the pack when it comes to diversity, employee relations, community activism, ethical corporate governance, human rights, and even most environmental issues. But they have recently taken some heat, and for good reason, for their subpar recycling programs as well as the continued use of toxic chemicals that other companies have agreed to phase out. But how much and what kind of toxic chemicals are used? According to newstarget.com:

About 70 percent of lead, mercury and other heavy-metal pollutants come from electronic waste. Thirty million computers are trashed every year in the United States alone.

Of course, not all of this waste comes from Macs, and Apple has since made a good deal of progress in the recycling of old computers. As of last year, they have greatly increased the scale and ease of recycling their products, including offering a 10% discount on a new iPod when you bring in an old one to be recycled. But these programs should be better advertised to increase their use. If you plan to buy an Apple computer, give this site a look as you decide what to do with the old one.

There is also a Greenpeace movement dedicated to getting Steve Jobs and The Apple Corporation to discontinue the use of many toxic chemicals in their products. While the information on the site doesn’t give the whole story (it gives far too much credit to other companies’ policies), it is important to let Mr. Jobs know that this is an important issue to us. So check out their “take action” page. It lists five small things that you can do to help make progress on this issue (What a great idea!). Let’s make it clear that not even the most progressive company gets a free ride.