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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
There's a big question behind this podcast: how environmentally friendly is an iPod? The answer: this Apple is more brown than green. But it's getting greener.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has not only revealed new environmentally friendly MacBooks, he has unveiled new iPods that are the most toxin-free ever. They’ve eliminated the poison arsenic and the brain-damaging mercury—and sheathed it in a recycleable aluminum skin.
Why do we care? When you trash last year's model—or any old technology for that matter, remember the Walkman?—it often ends up in a landfill or, even worse, exported to countries like China or India. There laborers are paid a pittance to smash, crack, melt and cook the materials out of old electronics. The result is local children with lead in the blood and adults poisoned by toxic fumes.
By the way, some federal prisoners in the U.S. enjoy the same conditions when employed by the government as e-cyclers.
And it’s not just the materials, we need to think about the energy used. We burn a lot of coal to run the computers that hold your music. That leads to air pollution, climate change and other problems tucked neatly away behind an electronic screen.
But it could be worse. Apple has introduced a program to take back old electronics and recycle them responsibly. So if you do buy the new, greener nano, make sure you return your old iPod to the store.
—David Biello
60-Second Earth is a weekly podcast from Scientific American. Subscribe to this Podcast: RSS | iTunes
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3 Comments
Add CommentAnd if these people aren't cooking the goodies out of our cast-off electronics, do you suppose that India and China will come up with nice, happy, toxin and fume free ways for laborers to earn the pittance that puts food in their mouths? Just a thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit is a terrible thing being a child labourer. We have wrung our hands over this but what is worse is the labour that they must still endure in order to eat. Think about it. Children with no food and no place to live, that is the world out there in recycle land. We in the rich world before and AFTER the stock crash have no clue about how really desperately poor much of the world is and how even little kids must eke out a living in garbage dumps and recycling sites along with their mothers and fathers. Banning child labour seemed a good idea. No child labour...no food to eat..this is the reality.. I have no solution but surely safer products will make fewer toxins to be absorbed into the ecosystem, the lungs and bodies of the workers, the mother's milk and the air we and especially those in poorer countries are forced to endure. Apple I believe is genuinely dealing with the issue in a way that no other computer or electronics company has done so far. Being the most public and unique as a manufacturer of hugely popular products, Apple will be a fine example to other lesser companies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually ChrisJones, they already did have non-poisonous ways for these people to survive. Racist dirtbag much?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnfiertel - you started out great, identified the issue and how complex it is. I applaud that. Then you went all Apple fanboy. The question you forgot was this:
Did Apple reduce the total amount of toxins in the entire production and distribution process, which would be good, or just in the final product, which accomplishes nothing beyond deluding silly fanboys and shifting who gets killed? This article does not really address that at all.