Earth-Friendy Laptops
September 07, 2007 at 09:53:00 PM, by
Mother nature would be proud of these "Green" notebooks.
Green is Good
The future is now, and it looks to be pretty green.
It's estimated that between 20 and 50 million tons of e-waste is generated per year around the globe. Surprisingly some of the biggest electronic waste offenders, according to environmental watchdog Greenpeace, include Toshiba, IBM, Panasonic, and even Apple. The problem doesn't just exist among a select few computer manufacturers, however. Without the proper research, materials, and means of disposal, old electronics and their components will continue to pile up around the world, leeching harmful compounds into ground water and topsoil as well as continuing to drain many non-renewable resources.
In May everyone's favorite purveyor of trendy design inspired electronics, Apple, announced they will be making a change for the better with their products, shifting towards more environmentally friendly designs and materials. Steve Jobs, who penned the May announcement below, added other hopeful words of encouragement that help illustrate Apple's new found interest in becoming a more eco-friendly company.
Today is the first time we have openly discussed our plans to become a greener Apple. It will not be the last. We will be providing updates of our efforts and accomplishments at least annually, most likely around this time of the year. And we plan to bring other environmental issues to the table as well, such as the energy efficiency of the products in our industry. We are also beginning to explore the overall carbon footprint' of our products, and may have some interesting data and issues to share later this year.'
Although Apple has yet to release a truly green' product their recent policy shift is quite encouraging, and due to Apple's juggernaut status in the industry, their compliance to a more sustainable computer might just be the kick in the pants other electronics manufactures need. By setting an industry-wide example Apple is not only atoning for problems in the past but is also creating a benchmark for other companies to aspire to.
For decades, the consumer electronics and computer industries have had their fair share of issues when it comes to disposing of unusable or old products. E-waste, as it has been dubbed, makes up a surprisingly significant amount of garbage that's thrown out every year by consumers and companies alike in the United States and around the world. Some of this waste ends up in landfills, where anything with a PCB (printed circuit board) and other electronic components degrade and leech toxic compounds, including lead, cadmium, and mercury into the environment. Even more disturbing, however, is that a greater amount of electronic trash will inadvertently end up lining the streets of populated towns and villages in many developing nations including China, India, and Nigeria.
A diagram explaining where most e-waste ends up. Image courtesy of Greenpeace and UNEP
The real solution for eliminating E-waste goes a lot further than simply restructuring a company's environmental vision, however. As a recent article from Popular Science Magazine illustrates, creating a truly green notebook requires more than just removing lead and cadmium from the equation. A variety of issues exist with current machines that can be improved upon through some innovative thinking and natural knowhow. The biggest issue with creating an eco-friendly laptop involves cutting down on the amount of energy the computer uses. Any drain on your system ends up becoming a drain on the nation's power supply and with users running their machines 24 hours per day, power consumption becomes a problem.
The solution? It's actually a two-fold answer. The first part involves creating computer components that require less energy to power. In your laptop the biggest energy offenders are the backlit display and constantly spinning hard drive. By using alternative technologies, namely solid-state flash memory instead of magnetic platter hard drive and less power-hungry displays, one can minimize the amount of electricity their laptop eats up. The second, and more energy efficient factor, has to do with creating a solution that allows mobile computers to harness power completely off the grid.' Popular Science points to solar energy as a means of powering future computers. By permanently unplugging your computer from the nation's electric grid one not only reduces the net amount of energy they consumer but they also reduce the amount of resources necessary to generate more electricity, saving part of the environment as well as part of their paycheck.
Image courtesy of Popular Science Magazine
A final part of the puzzle deals with the recycling aspect and how manufactures can use natural renewable resources to build their machines. Instead of using petroleum-based plastics to to build the notebook shells, bioplastics derived from corn and castor-oil could be used. The advantage is that these bioplastics would degrade naturally once recycled, decomposing and becoming part of the ecosystem, instead of piling up and taking eons to disappear as current plastics do. One other solution that would make it easier for recyclers to dismantle and salvage parts from old machines would require manufactures to include a built in parts list' that catalogs every transistor and memory chip onboard the computer. Suggestions for accomplishing this include using RFID chips, which would carry such a parts list, and could be read wirelessly helping the recycler determine what they can harvest and what must be trashed. A great deal of research into such technologies is currently being undertaken, so hopefully consumers could start to see these and other eco-wonders in the marketplace before the end of the decade.
As computer companies begin to turn their attention inward in order to create more environmentally sound machines, the marketplace will begin to shift towards a greener tomorrow. Other industries, ranging from textiles to Hollywood films, have already begun to take steps to create carbon neutral' and more eco-friendly products. Problems such as global warming and overflowing landfills will continue to get worse unless an initiative is taken to make a change. With these initial rumblings in the computer industry a wave of change may be on the way, and if companies like Apple and Dell can market it right, living a carbon neutral lifestyle via your gadgets might become the next popular craze.
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