Greenpeace likes new iPod nano, congratulates self

Although they still rate Apple behind Sony Ericsson, Sony, Nokia, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Acer... (you get the idea) in its quarterly guide to greener electronics, Greenpeace tossed a bit of love to the boys from Cupertino for the new eco-friendlier iPod nano. In a blog post titled "less toxic iPods rock," Greenpeace praised itself as victorious in its own "Green my Apple campaign" before chiding Apple for not doing more to green all of its products. Hooray, a victory for Greenpeace, shame on you Apple for uh... oh never mind.

[Via Pocket-lint]

[Muhammad-Oli @ Sep 11th 2008 8:31AM]

Greenpeace can be real tossers sometimes. For a bunch of squatters trying to save the planet, they're pretty annoying and up themselves.

[Magallanes @ Sep 11th 2008 9:13AM]

Greenpeace is just a facade, i use more lead in my fishing weights than thousand of ipod and i can buy this weights freely. So, what's the point?. simple, it's more lucrative to ask to save a exotic whales instead to fight to the real guilty, it's better for the marketing to save a jungle in a remote place (with luck you can find it in a map) instead to save your own national parks.

[nathan.wong @ Sep 11th 2008 9:22AM]

Good point Magallanes. I never even thought about the lead I was throwing into lakes, rivers and oceans when fishing. Now I'll feel guilt each time I take a 2 - 4 ounce weight and toss it into the water. At least they're not laced with mercury.

[Taylor @ Sep 11th 2008 9:23AM]

Magallanes:
They're probably more against the fact that you're fishing... with poisonous lead...

[Chuckles McGee @ Sep 11th 2008 9:25AM]

I like my iPod glass with arsenic, thank you very much!

[tom @ Sep 11th 2008 9:30AM]

Are you guys concern about our next generation? Do you really think we are the last generation of human race?
Jobs did some good responsible thing, I salute him.

[Chuck @ Sep 11th 2008 10:15AM]

Last generation...good one

While I think it's good Apple is reducing their trash on the environment, let's get real people. I see more aluminum and glass thrown on the side of the road when going to work than Apple has or ever will put into manufacturing their iPods.

Personally, I don't have any problem throwing lead fish weights into a stream. I'm not going to dump my trash on the side of the road or throw lead weights into a stream because I'm too lazy to wait till I get to a trash can, but come on people. What's the chances we're actually going to hurt something by using lead fish weights.

Magallanes hit it dead on.

[tom @ Sep 11th 2008 11:27AM]

geez...you people, the sinkers for fishing is not made by lead anymore. Sinkers and jigs made from non-poisonous materials such as tin, bismuth, steel, and tungsten-nickel alloy

http://www.pca.state.mn.us/oea/reduce/sinkers.cfm

[rafa @ Sep 11th 2008 2:11PM]

Meh, I for one am glad Greenpeace exists. The worst they do is complain and peaceful trespassing. The best they do is raise real awareness on issues, and lo and behold, in cases like this one it works.

BTW, this new fading look for comments that are low ranked is fucking with my eyesight. I thought my monitor was going dim or something. Collapse is better than fade.

[Mobius_1 @ Sep 11th 2008 8:32AM]

Well done, I'm no fanboy, but anything like this is worth congratulating. But what about all the other iPods? or the iPhone? Anything been done with them?

[Allan @ Sep 11th 2008 8:33AM]

Certainly a good thing for Apple... but Greenpeace just needs to STFU and go away. Their campaign did nothing to further this. They have zero reason to congratulate themselves.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Sep 11th 2008 12:01PM]

Actually it did. At the time that Greenpeace singled Apple out, they were really no worse than other electronics companies. I think one big negative was that Greenpeace claimed they had no recycling program; actually I think they've always had on-site recycling, but I guess Dell and some others had mail-it-in recycling. Here's the chart:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up

Anyway, they basically just called Apple out because it would get bigger headlines than calling out companies like Nintendo and MS that had much lower rankings.

Given that Apple essentially bowed to Greenpeace (and why not?) in this most recent product release, Steve should have made a bigger deal about it. He should have basically said yeah, we didn't do so hot on these rankings, but this stuff is really important to us, so here's what we're gonna do..

It would have been good PR, encouraged others to do more of the same, yadda yadda.

[Allan @ Sep 11th 2008 8:34AM]

It's nice that Apple are taking steps to make iPods more environmentally friendly but I reckon that Greenpeace just have to complain about EVERYTHING. I agree, Greenpeace are pretty annoying. We can save the environment, but we don't have to be that picky.

[Evilkid500 @ Sep 11th 2008 8:36AM]

Who the hell cares about greenpeace???? this is completely ridiculous that a company would care so much about what a wacko-way-off-the-deep-end organization thinks of them. By giving all this attention to making their product more "green" it puts the power in greenpeace's hands. This makes me sick.

[required @ Sep 11th 2008 11:05AM]

"Who the hell cares about greenpeace?"

A lot of folks including myself.

[chiefted @ Sep 11th 2008 1:11PM]

Point blank Greenpeace is pretty much an irrelevant organization now a days.

They complain about anything and everything, yet when you have the temerity
to ask how much diesel fuel that boat of theirs burns the get down right hostile.

[Huihai @ Sep 11th 2008 4:28PM]

I do care, and maybe you should consider too. Or not, up to you.

[Loop @ Sep 11th 2008 8:36AM]

doh...they forgot to check for lead...ie...its made it china...kids dont eat this at home!

[shanoboy @ Sep 11th 2008 8:42AM]

This from the same group that flunked Nintendo simply because there was no data available at all.

I put little confidence into anything the communists over at Greenpeace have to say. These are the same guys who destroy people's crops in third world countries because they're genetically modified then go eat a steak for dinner that night in their plush hotels.

[kojo87 @ Sep 11th 2008 11:33AM]

is that true that they are against genetically modified crops? that is simply inane. i have never understood the fear of genetically modified food. my father works at the University of Wisconsin researching corn breeding. i obviously can't speak on the matter as well as he could but genetic modification of crops is a fantastic achievement of modern science. i dont think too many people would be against it if they knew the facts.

selective breeding is considered genetic modification and who is going to say its a bad thing to phase out the bad genes and promote the good ones? the point is if we can genetically engineer crops to consume less nutrition from the soil and yield a higher harvest percentage and better nutritional value and make it cheaper on top of that shouldn't everyone, including Greenpeace, be excited? we can grow crops in areas of the world that we never could before. how is burning them down helping anyone Greenpeace?

i've been eating genetically modified sweetcorn every summer since i've had teeth. my dad would bring it home 4 nights a week. im not too worried about developing nightvision or a prehensile tail. although im not opposed to it.

[devil666 @ Sep 11th 2008 12:38PM]

kojo87: you are right on the money. Not only is selective breeding a good thing but it is a humanization of Darwinism which is how humanity came to be in the first place! We (humans) are the product of natural selective breeding from many hundreds of thousands of years ago, we have just figured out how to cut the time down. Go us!

[7on @ Sep 11th 2008 1:40PM]

I think it's because if we're selectively breeding and eliminating genes, what happens when a corn virus comes through and kills 99.9% of the world's corn because a gene that was removed would have made it immune to said virus.

[ColonelSmith @ Sep 11th 2008 8:37PM]

@7on
Thats why scientists like to experiment. To make sure nothing like that happens.

[Ross @ Sep 11th 2008 8:44AM]

first!

[Ross @ Sep 11th 2008 8:45AM]

wow, my internet is slow.

[Allan @ Sep 11th 2008 8:48AM]

Obligatory FAIL comment.

[Salsa Shark @ Sep 11th 2008 9:28AM]

You seem to wear that "slow" shoe very well, Ross.

[raul @ Sep 11th 2008 1:03PM]

I love how you just fade away now... no more you..........................

[Chanzo @ Sep 11th 2008 8:46AM]

Yes the whole "green my apple" thing, more like DONATE TO GREENPEACE AMIRITE.

Let's latch onto a brand/company that gets a lot of attention (just read any Apple story/thread, muchos attention), then smear shit over them = mass advertising for greenpeace. Seems to me that lately they are more about stupid stunts than actually making a difference to anything, or were they always like that?

[tony @ Sep 11th 2008 10:50AM]

No, but URFAIL

[Charles R Hamilton @ Sep 11th 2008 8:49AM]

Every time you bring up greenpeace on Engadget, they get raked over the coals. Nobody cares about this self important group of radical extremists, maybe you ought to stop talking about them.

[required @ Sep 11th 2008 11:07AM]

You must be nobody because you clearly got titillated by this posting. By the way, I admire Greenpeace too.

[tekdroid @ Sep 11th 2008 8:49AM]

No user-replaceable battery. Check.

Single most important item that will:
1) most likely die first (ie. not hold enough charge after 400-500 charge cycles
2) most likely not be replaced by the overwhelming majority of the target market
3) most likely will be tossed with their footscraps for garbage collection (negating any recyclability pluses)

More crap reaching landfill by design. Check.

No user-replaceable Flash storage to cater to different needs or Flash that has gone bad or eyond its write cycles, which too are limited and fail. Check.

The highly recyclable means nothing if:
1) products themselves are designed with a non-removable limited-life device(s) inside of it
2) aren't really designed for long-term use (5+ years).
3) have no user-replaceable bits common in mobile phones (battery, storage)

Greenpeace approval or no Greenpeace approval.
No, I'm not just talking about Apple here. But the (inexplicable) trend of non-removable storage and batteries in audio land.

[Eric Law @ Sep 11th 2008 9:19AM]

Sansa e200 series.

cheap: check (refurbs from several outlets including frequent guest appearances on woot.com : 4GB model last sold at $45)
user replacable battery: check
flash memory expansion (up to 8GB with rockbox): check
ideal tiny form factor (that the new nano finally has moved to... that fatty was ugly): check

[johnzilla @ Sep 11th 2008 11:30AM]

From Apple's website:

"All of Apple’s U.S. retail stores, which now number more than 150, take back unwanted iPods for environmentally friendly disposal free of charge. As an incentive, we even offer customers a 10% discount on a new iPod when they bring their old iPod to our stores for proper disposal. This summer we’re expanding it to Apple retail stores worldwide, and we’re also extending it to include free shipping from anywhere in the U.S. No product purchases are required for any of our free take back programs. In a few months, we think we’ll have ‘best of breed’ iPod recycling programs in the U.S., and we plan to continue to expand our free iPod recycling programs globally in the future."

tekdroid making assumptions without facts: check.

[kojo87 @ Sep 11th 2008 11:36AM]

this is why hybrid cars aren't all they are cracked up to be. they are are still new enough that the engines haven't died yet. nobody has a Prius with 300k miles on it. but when it does bite the dust where do you think that huge battery is going?

[tekdroid @ Sep 13th 2008 7:38AM]

johnzilla,
The very fact that they take back iPods in the US tells us precisely that they are designed for short-term use and disposal, which does a great job at illustrating my point. It also doesn't take away from the fact that the overwhelming majority disposed of with other means. The items with known limiited life cannot be replaced by the average layman. The focus needs to be on long-term use, but that doesn't make for good business apparently.

How many people would you say are aware of Apple's recycling plans? I'd say almost none would be fairly accurate.

Not to mention there is a world well beyond the USA with millions of ipods being disposed of each year (hundreds of thousands, at the very least, by my reckoning).

Designed for disposal.

[aeth @ Sep 11th 2008 8:51AM]

Oh, does the new iPod Nano have a glass screen? That'd be pretty cool. One of the reasons I didn't get an iPod was because they used crappy plastic screens that don't go well with jean pockets.

[Ash @ Sep 11th 2008 8:54AM]

Yes, planned obsolescence is very green, 4 generations of the Nano in 3 years. Give me a break...

[riggs @ Sep 11th 2008 8:56AM]

greenpeace and peta should just be abolished from the planet.

[happy_penguin @ Sep 11th 2008 9:30AM]

I believe you mean "banished".

[riggs @ Sep 11th 2008 9:42AM]

abolished, banished, just get them the hell outta here!

[riggs @ Sep 18th 2008 2:41PM]

im pretty sure i just said greenpeace and PETA, where the hell did u get everybody else from? and im ALSO pretty sure im not a plant or oxygen, so lmao @ greenpeace saving my life. moron.

[Ethan @ Sep 11th 2008 8:58AM]

It's this "awareness" thing that confuses me. Apple actually put the work in making a product which will actually change things by being both desirable, competitive and environmentally friendly. The yelling didn't really help.

Anybody remember that Nintendo thing, where they scored 0.0 because they couldn't get the information? That and their self-congratulation in this case show how it's skewed towards grandstanding and egotism. Even for a good cause, I think it's counter-productive. They need to be talking to the companies directly and trying to research for alternatives themselves.

Hey, I did my tiny minuscule bit, my old iPod and other electronics never end up in landfills.

[Kelly @ Sep 11th 2008 9:02AM]

the new text color of normal comments (not highs and lows) is terrible =\

[absinthe party @ Sep 11th 2008 9:10AM]

Yeah... I've been going through and high-ranking people regardless of what they're saying just so I can hopefully read the text in the future.

[Peter @ Sep 11th 2008 10:01AM]

Agreed. I thought something was wrong with my monitor because they were all so hard to read.

[Boarderwoot @ Sep 11th 2008 9:05AM]

Congratulations Apple on being at the very bottom of the "green" list but what's important here is that you've taken a small step in what appears to be the right direction. You'd really make headlines if you offered a collection of all the iShit that people throw out. Cases and bands and straps and shitty white headphones and old iPods and everything else that would go to a normal landfill. Take all that stuff to Sunny Cupertino and start an iFill. Then maybe you'll see what kind of impact you're having on the environment and that removing toxins from your products should be the least of your worries.

[happy_penguin @ Sep 11th 2008 9:10AM]

Who gives a fuck if the product itself is green when the production techniques in China are destroying the environment. And don't single out Apple. They all do it. Seriously, the garbage they dump in the ground, the water and the air at these third world factories is atrocious. But it's so nice to have cheap computers and cell phones. Greenpeace can suck it.

[happy_penguin @ Sep 11th 2008 1:17PM]

HUH? Where the hell did I say it was okay for Apple to be environmentally irresponsible? My point is this: The real problem is third world production facilities which operate under virtually no environmental rules whatsoever. Until that problem is addressed nothing of any real substance will be solved. Not only that. Do you have any idea how many tons of recyleables get shipped out only to turn up in third world dumps? What fucking good is it to make something recycleable if after you return it to be recycled it ends up in a Chinese dump where it poisons water and ultimately wildlife and children? But you don't care. You did your part.