San Francisco stops buying Apple kit after it drops out of EPEAT

THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO will stop spending taxpayers' money on Apple hardware after the firm pulled out of the EPEAT environmental certification programme.

Late last month Apple requested that all of its 39 certified products be removed from the EPEAT registry, which Apple itself helped create. Now the San Francisco Department of Environment has said that Apple desktop and laptops "will no longer qualify" for purchases made with taxpayers' money.

Jon Walton, San Francisco's CIO told the Wall Street Journal he will back the policy and said, "It's going to be very problematic to procure Apple products."

Apple has been widely criticised for the lack of repairability in its new Retina display Macbook Pro. The firm has largely foregone mechanical fasteners such as screws in favour of glue and uses proprietary SSDs to ensure that users can't upgrade using cheaper aftermarket alternatives.

According to EPEAT's CEO Robert Frisbee, Apple's latest Macbook Pro would not meet EPEAT guidelines because the battery is glued into the machine. EPEAT certification hinges partly on the ease of recycling parts, which is hindered by the use of glue.

The WSJ notes that San Francisco spent only one to two per cent of its total hardware budget on Apple products, so this is largely a symbolic gesture. However Californians might wonder why, given that the state has been effectively bankrupt for several years, the city was spending taxpayers' money to buy shiny overpriced toys for civil servants. µ