Greenpeace hails Dell for supporting flame retardant ban

A SURVEY Mori conducted on behalf of Greenpeace showed many people in many countries will pay more for a PC which is less toxic and uses less toxic elements.

It depends where you are on what you think, said Mori, on Greenpeace's behalf.

For example, in Germany, 54 per cent of folk will pay more for a computer which is "environmentally friendly". That figure rises to 84 per cent in Thailand, 81 per cent in China, 78 per cent in Mexico, 68 per cent in Britain, 65 per cent in Poland, and 62 per cent in the Philippines.

Forty three per cent of the people surveyed knew PCs and other gadgets contain toxic stuff, although only 13 per cent of Polish folk knew this.

Dell was hailed for making a decision to remove "hazardous chemicals" including brominated flame retardants and PVC from its products by 2009. But, according to Greenpeace, HP, Lucky Goldstar, Nokia, Samsung, Sony and Ericsson have already said they will deck hazardous chemicals sooner.

Greenpeace claimed Acer, Apple, Fujitsu Siemens, IBM, Lenovo, Panasonic, Siemens and Toshiba have "failed to comment" so far on their plans.

But Greenpeace singled out Motorola for particular complaint. It said it is the only of the top five mobile phone firms which has failed to commit to remove toxic components. Motorola, claimed Greenpeace, has "backtracked" on previous commitments it had made.

Mori interviewed over 9,000 people in India, China, Thailand, the Philippines, the UK, Germany, Poland, Mexico and Brazil. None of the vendors was available for comment at press time. µ