Right now you are probably staring at lead, mercury, cadmium, barium, beryllium, polyvinyl chloride, and brominated flame retardants. No, the toxic waste disposal company didn’t just dump a barrel of chemicals on your desk – these dangerous toxins can be found right inside your precious personal computer.
- Computer screens commonly contain lead, which can cause brain, nervous system, blood, and reproductive problems
- LCD screens and wiring boards, are often made with mercury, with prolonged exposure leading to brain and kidney damage.
- Circuit boards usually contain brominated flame retardants (BFR) which have been linked to learning and memory impairment.
- Inexpensive plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are manufactured using a vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), a known carcinogen.
With computer sales rising, and technological advancements that leave two or three year old products outdated, more and more electronic waste, or e-waste, is ending up in landfills, where toxins then seep into our land, air, and water. Though many e-waste products could be recycled, most are thrown away without proper care. Sadly, an estimated 50-80 percent of e-waste from the United States is shipped overseas to China and India, where low-income communities are paid to take these toxic chemicals off American hands.
Seeing Green
The current demand for eco-friendly products has left companies pledging to greenify their computers. Steve Jobs of Apple, formerly criticized for his company’s lack of green efforts, came out with a plan called A Greener Apple, which promises complete elimination of arsenic, PVC, and BFR in their products by the end of 2008. And, VIA Technologies, Inc., based in Taiwan, has started a program aimed at powering their computers with the sun and in 2006, a small Samoan village in the South Pacific became home of the first solar powered cyber community center.
In April 2008 at the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference, Dell mentioned the release of a desktop computer encased in bamboo – one of the world’s most renewable resources – as an alternative to metal or plastics. Asus even made attempts to create a bamboo laptop, but ended up using less and less bamboo as the product prepared for release. At any rate, experimenting with bamboo in electronics has harvested promising potential.
With hope for a greener future, check out a few of the current market’s most eco-friendly laptops.
DELL LATITUDE D630 ($783.00)
This five-pound laptop is free from lead, BFR, and PVC, and it meets Energy Star efficiency standards. The Latitude’s parts are not glued together like most PCs, which make them easier to recycle.
But, the Latitude D630 still contains mercury, and the laptop’s parts and packaging are not made from any recycled materials. Dell redeems itself by being the first company to go carbon neutral in 2007, meaning that for all of the C02 they release into the world, they purchase equivalent carbon offsets to break even.
MACBOOK AIR ($1, 799.00)
This super-thin, ultra-light laptop – weighing in at a mere three pounds – is arsenic- and mercury-free, and lead-free, as well, since Apple eliminated the use of these CRT in 2006. And, the MacBook Air is the second laptop to ship out BFR- and PVC-free, preceded by the Sony Vaio in November 2007.
In addition to meeting Energy Star efficiency standards, Apple also made the laptop’s outer case out of easily recyclable aluminum, as well as reduced packaging for the Air by 56 percent.
TOSHIBA PORTEGE R500 ($2,999. 00)
Released in June 2008, the Portégé R500 now under-weighs the MacBook Air as the lightest laptop, coming in at 1.72 pounds. Toshiba also introduces super-long battery power with the Portégé R500, allowing users to work for nearly 8 hours before recharging. How? The computer doesn’t use a hard drive.
Instead it uses a 64 GB solid state hard drive that works just like your USB flash drive. Solid state hard drives eliminate moving parts within the computer, so less energy is wasted during use. This model of the Portégé also features a mercury-free LED backlit display and meets Energy Star standards.
Toshiba itself wins extra points for it’s overall movement toward a greener world, by promoting eco-friendly manufacturing processes at recent green expos and implementing a Toshiba Tree Planting program.
LENOVO THINKPAD X300 ($1,020.00)
In addition to its awesome yet practical touch-screen and swivel-hinge features, the ThinkPad meets Energy Star standards, with a battery life of up to 7 hours unplugged. It sports arsenic-free glass and mercury-free displays, and the ThinkPad‘s packaging is 90 percent recyclable.
Lenovo also encourages purchasing their SolarPowerPAC to charge all X series laptops.
SONY VAIO TZ11 ($2,099.00)
Sony Vaio TZ11 does not contain beryllium or its components, and Greenpeace’s “Searching for Greener Electronics” survey applauded the computer’s “three toxic-free innovations”: PVC-free cables, BFR-free circuit board, and mercury-free LED backlight. However, upon close examination of the Greenpeace PDF report, they conclude that the computer is not entirely PVC- and BFR-free, and does contain these toxic chemicals in other areas.
The Vaio does have an amazing eight to nine hour battery life due to a solid state drive much like the Toshiba Portégé.
CHERRYPAL ($249.00)
It’s not a laptop, but CherryPal’s brand new book-sized desktop is green enough to rival every laptop we know. CherryPal uses just two watts of energy, about as much as a digital clock radio, in comparison to an average desktop that runs on 65 to 114 watts, and laptops that run on 15 to 45 watts. CherryPal is able to run on such little energy because it contains no moving parts, and it is a cloud computer.
Cloud computing means that all your files and applications are stored online and managed by CherryPal. Upon purchase, customers receive 50GB of storage space located in the “cloud” on the Internet. This process reduces energy used by individual operating systems, but still allows for fast browsing online and safe file storage for users.
The down side? Since CherryPal is currently flying solo, you are responsible for providing a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for your new eco-pal, and you miss out on the mobility of a laptop.
The up side? If you already own and prefer a desktop, simply keep your screen and keys, but replace your old, energy-hogging tower with CherryPal, and wha-la! You save money and energy without pitching more e-waste into the world.
Want to contribute to the the green electronics movement?
- Buy only the greenest electronics. Research your eco-friendly options on EPEAT.
- Turn off your computer when you are not using it. If you have to leave it on for a long period of time, change your power management settings to reduce energy waste.
- Recycle your old computers and electronics with companies who promise safe, legal recycling and disposal methods.
- Write to company CEOs asking them to produce more responsible and sustainable e-products.
1 Comment
July 29, 2009 at 8:22 pm
You have a very cool and informative site here. Most people do not think about all of the chemicals and processes that are involved in manufacturing computers. With computers being so widespread, it is crucial that companies focus on producing eco-friendly products. Inevitably as time passes, computers will not only increase in computing power, they will also reduce power consumption and size of components, becoming more “green” in the process.
-Ryan