Hi there, my name is Tony. I joined Project Green Thumb because I care about the health of the world I’ll leave to my children, their children, and so on. I remember what it was like to run through the field near my house as a child. How clean it was, how fresh the air seemed, how wonderful nature really is. As I got older I started to see signs of environment damage. I found Styrofoam containers and non-biodegradable plastics lying about. It was then that I decided not to be a party to that kind of world abuse. I wasn’t sure how to go about keeping that promise until many years later. My colleagues and I have some ideas to share with you. Some you may already know, some new. Either way, feel free to comment on any post, we love feedback.
So, like millions of others I decided that I have to have the new iPhone5. I’m tired of phones that aren’t reliable, easy to use or are energy hogs (in one way or another). When I heard that the new iPhone would have better energy efficiency I had to check it out. My first order of business was to find out everything I could about the new device, including the packaging (which we all know ends up in landfills). So I turned to the internet for this information. My first search effort led me to some sites with very little information. In their defense, the phone wasn’t released yet and Apple was being very tight-lipped about the whole deal. I was not deterred. I kept searching, and searching, and searching…
Finally, release date came and all of a sudden I had information available to me. More than rumors and hearsay, I had actual numbers and information I could use and read. The first place I went for that information was Apple. Their Environmental reports are easy to find, but since I’m looking specifically at the iPhone5 that’s what I’ll provide here:
iPhone5 environmental report
Let me just say this, I am impressed with what I see. Not only does Apple provide these reports, but they actually include a lot of information in them. I’ll go on record here and state that until the last several months I have been a die-hard PC guy. I used a Mac in school, when I had to, and I almost had a breakdown installing iTunes after buying an iPod, which I bought because I wasn’t happy with the alternatives out there.
Back to the report though, the first thing you see on it is Apple’s statement and views about the environment. They are direct and seem to take a serious look at their impact on nature. Next they included a breakdown of where their products produce greenhouse gases, and the percentage of each piece. I’d include a picture, but they have their report in pdf and I am unable to grab it. Nevertheless, you can see it in the link above.
After that they cover Energy efficiency (US and foreign), Material efficiency, Packaging (U.S. retail packaging of iPhone5 is 27 percent lighter and consumes 41 percent less volume than the first-generation iPhone packaging), and then they state they comply with the European Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment aka, RoHS Directive. Whew, that was a mouthful! But, even complying with that strict standard isn’t enough for Apple; they went a step further and incorporated more stringent restrictions. These are:
• Arsenic-free display glass (who wants arsenic near their face when on the phone, really?)
• Mercury-free LED-backlit display
• BFR-free
• PVC-free
I could go on, but I fear I already lost some readers with my wall of text. So I’ll leave you with this: With the rumors I found I liked what I saw about the iPhone5. After release and more data and reading, I’m hooked. I can’t wait until I have one in my grubby little hands so I can join the trendy world of Apple, and not feel guilty about their products impact on the world.
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