Greenpeace admits that Apple’s iPhone is fully compliant with Euro chemicals rules

“Greenpeace has laid into Apple’s iPhone, alleging the device isn’t eco-friendly enough – only to admit that the product not only meets the terms of Apple’s own pledges on the use of certain hazardous chemicals but doesn’t fall foul of European Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation either,” Tony Smith reports for The Register.

Smith asks, “In short, while Greenpeace’s point that Apple really should have shown some materials leadership with the iPhone is a valid one to make, why get stroppy when Apple has not exceeded the limits it has set itself or those imposed upon it by Europe’s RoHS regulations? What about all the other phone makers out there?”

“We’d guess it’s because Apple is an easy target, and Greenpeace knows iPhone related commentary gains press coverage, and that’s why it’s chosen to lay into the Apple handset rather than others. Greenpeace’s write-up doesn’t once compare and contrast the iPhone’s use of hazardous substances with that of any other mobile phone from any other vendor,” Smith reports.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: As we said yesterday, Greenpeace loves to jump aboard a good PR bandwagon. They’re riding Apple for all they’re worth.

54 Comments

  1. Greenpeace is a farce. And that organization who filed a lawsuit against Apple yesterday based on that report should feel idiotic. Get real, Nokia outsells Apple, what, 90 to 1 and no one even cares to single them out. Ridiculous.

  2. “As we said yesterday, Greenpeace loves a good PR bandwagon such as Apple.”
    Yup, and it’s less dangerous than to protest against environmental desaster zones in Russia or China ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />

  3. I have never agreed with Greenpeace on ANYTHING. With that said, if they really want corporations to go green, I can’t think of a more self-sabotaging gameplan than this. Why is it that groups who say they want something good self-destruct in the most public manner possible? This doesn’t help the environment one bit, guys. In fact, it erodes what little credibility that you have left. Maybe Greenpeace will dry up and blow away after having cried “wolf” too many times. I wouldn’t miss them, and I doubt that serious eco-warriors would miss them, either.

  4. I was at a ski resort in Lake Tahoe, California this summer, and on the side of the building was a small sign mentioning that the building contains chemicals known to the state of california to cause cancer. That building probably met the European chemical laws too… but it was in California. I don’t care if iPhones meet euro chemical laws, because they are being sold in California where they BREAK the chemical laws. Get a grip mdn, apple is WRONG to do this.

  5. This says it all

    “That would have been useful: a document that, rather than whining about one vendor not moving as quickly on this issue as Greenpeace and others would like, shows consumers which handsets on the market contain the least quantities of hazardous chemicals.”

  6. Greenpeace at least learned something. That is the fact that the same medium that allows them to spew their hyperbolic claims to all corners of the Earth also allows people with the actual smarts to analyse and call them on their bullshit. Sort of like the Streisand effect. The louder they carry on the closer their claims will be scrutinized. Notice how it took only days instead of weeks like last time.

  7. I used to have an idealistic impression of greenpeace as a noble organisation until i was harangued by a greenpeace guy on the streets asking for donations. I offered him $20 but he asked me why I didn’t show more devotion to the cause by signing up for monthly donations instead. It was borderline harassment and I ended up walking away. They lost the plot ages ago.

  8. Funny thing is in their office, their all using Macs.
    Greenpeace, WWF and the rest are all PR singers looking for a stage. The stage doesn’t get any better than Apple for media attention so the fat lady sings again again again.
    MW=upon == As in upon the stage

  9. @ Raymond from DC

    Every time I hear the name “Green Peace” I think of that scene and when Stamper (Bruce Willis) makes a comment about how much oil the boat they are on is using… something like this:

    “You know how much diesel that clunker boat pumps out an hour?”

    All while the green peacers are chanting stop the drilling.

    Funny stuff.

    The Dude abides.

  10. Hey GS, that is a funny thing, and Algore and GP are totally in bed together. Algore’s hysterically irrelevant environMental campaign is a long running joke, with him tooling around in a freaking private jet to spread the non-news.

    Algore owns stock in Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), lives in a 10,000sf, 20-room, 8 bath house in Nashville, and a 4,000sf house in VA, AND he has a third house elsewhere in TN.

    I just love it when liberals contradict their own warped ‘standards’.

    Another good example is the environmentally sensitive Disney, which produce hundreds of tons of landfill fodder a day in its parks but then shows posters of the Little Mermaid wanting us to “keep the oceans clean”.

  11. About the time it’s original Founder’s left, citing the fact the GP has lost it’s way – It now trolls for donations from guilty Liberals with money… so they can troll for even more money from Guilty liberals elsewhere. I had a chance to talk to a (nice) GP volunteer who was at the store “greening” at Macworld ’07, and though she thought she was doing the right thing, the “facts” she had been told by the organizers were a complete sham – most of which Daniel Eran at roughlydrafted debunked. It was a stupid, lame idea, and although their foot soldiers are (naive) college freshmen trying to do something for the planet, the asshats in PR who feed them the lies should be shot. They even ignore the information from their (used to be) reputable scientific side. I bet the scientific side turned in a report talking about the chemicals in the iPhone, and the PR twisted it around so much to make Apple look bad, that they ended up contradicting it. Just like all the environmental PR “reports” on Apple they’ve put out for the last several years.

    -javbw

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