Green: the newest shade of Apple’s products. Apple’s new environmental webpage draws critics to wonder whether Apple actually wills to reduce its carbon footprint or simply attempts to advertise its products.
According to its sleek, green-colored webpage, Apple is making progress. As of 2010 the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, as well as accessories became free of materials that are notorious for creating toxic byproducts such as mercury, arsenic, brominated flame retardant, polyvinyl chloride and lead.
“Toxic chemicals and materials can really harm humans. It’s great that they have removed all of them from their products,” senior Kevin Warger said. “Apple will definitely draw customers in by taking such an action to help the environment.”
Apple engineering experts, as stated on their website, have also developed “small, light, and protective” packaging that uses 53 percent less material; every 23,760 units shipped saves an entire 747 flight. Even more efficient, according to Apple’s self-reported website, Apple’s MacBook and Mac Mini use up to six times less power than a traditional, 60-Watt incandescent light bulb.
Illustrating its self-reported statistics on recycling efforts just as brightly, Apple highlights its notebooks’ “leading” battery – which charge up to 1,000 times – and the percentage of their products recycled– which has increased by 15 percent per year since 2005, on average. Other leading brands have laptops whose batteries only charge up to 300 times.
“From what their website suggests, especially on their recycling efforts, Apple has been doing a lot to save the environment,” junior Catherine Fischer said. “With all of the information they provide on their page, I feel like buying an Apple [product] would be a great decision.”
However, according to Greenpeace, Apple dropped four places in an October 2010 survey judging companies on their elimination of hazardous substances, as well as recycling efforts and reduction of their environmental impact. It ranked ninth; Sony, Samsung, Nokia and Hewlett Packard- four of the 18 manufacturers judged by Greenpeace- outranked Apple in the survey.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Fortune 500 Challenge, an event that provides incentives for companies to buy wind or solar power, Apple ranked 35th. In January Apple ranked 34th. Dell rose from 31st to 21st, and HP rose from 22nd to 21st.
According to other EPA estimates, Apple does not seem relatively environmentally- friendly either; Dell bought 58 times more clean energy than Apple. The companies differ in size, so comparing them may seem inapt; nonetheless, this suggests that other businesses are taking larger steps toward becoming greener than Apple states on their website.
“Apple? No way. I’m a PC,” senior Vincenzo Gugliuzza said. “Apple is not as environmentally-friendly as they make themselves seem. Of course I don’t think they are lying, but not once on their page do they compare themselves to other companies, nor give you the option to – lame.”
