New MacBook: The Future of Green PCs?

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The new aluminum-clad MacBook Apple released last week may mean good news for IT staff wanting to reduce or eliminate toxic materials used to build the PCs they buy. Greenpeace says that other PC makers could feel forced to match Apple's elimination of toxic materials used in the laptop's manufacturing.

Greenpeace has long been a critic of Apple's environmental policies, but it lauds the new MacBook as a breakthrough. According to Computerworld, Greenpeace "saw the elimination of toxic materials as the big story," with the release of the new MacBook. The newspaper quotes Greenpeace as saying that other PC manufacturers, such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and Toshiba, should follow suit.

"This will be a first for a computer maker and lays down the challenge to competitors such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba," Greenpeace said in a statement. "If Apple has solved the challenges involved, there's no excuse for any of these companies not to follow Apple's lead on toxic chemicals elimination now and not wait until the end of 2009."

In fact, Computerworld notes, "All those companies have pledged to remove PVC and BFRs from their products by the end of next year."

The kudos that Apple has received from Greenpeace is in contrast to the poor relations between the computer-maker and environmental group in the past. Greenpeace had long criticized Apple for what it felt were the company's poor environmental record, and Steve Jobs in turn criticized Greenpeace.

Jobs has since seen the light. Jobs recently said that Apple will recycle 25% of materials used in its products this year -- a goal it originally said it would reach by 2010. And according to an environmental report released by Apple, the new MacBook outperforms even Energy Start requirements, and has energy efficiency between 86.6% and 87.5%. In addition, Apple has eliminated toxic materials the MacBooks' manufacturing, and has cut down dramatically on packaging materials.