Apple responds to critisism from Greenpeace

Steve Jobs have written a response to the criticism about Apples environmental standards. It seems that they actually do better than Greenpeace thought they did. Well, that's positive :-)

According to Apple they do better than HP and Dell, and have some sensible plans for chemical reduction and recycling.

I'm glad that Apple finally put some focus this. We need focus on this. Consumers have a lot to say, but they don't always contextualize. When they do contextualize they have a tendency to do it on a limited information basis. For instance the Greenpeace campaign (which I fully support) apparently didn't have all the relevant information about Apple.

While the power of the consumer is great to create focus on an issue, in this case, I think what we need is legislation. Set some limits for what chemical levels are allowed and require computer manufacturers to have a recycling policy. I think we need a objective and trusted investigation entity to determine how the computer manufacturers are doing.

A solution would be to put a tax on chemicals in computers. That would certainly encourage computer manufacturers to reduce those chemicals.