Tech Talk

Joe Hutsko, author of “Green Gadgets for Dummies” chats about how to save money and energy with your tech gear, and the Times reporter Matt Richtel talks about the rise of technology devices on the road.

Read the full story: Tech Talk | NYTimes.com: Green Gadgets For Dummies author Joe Hutsko | JOEyGADGET

Here are links to videos of my interviews with HP and Panasonic execs at the Greener Gadgets 2010 conference:

Maria Tate, Senior Industrial Designer, HP

Peter Fannon, VP Corporate and Government Affairs, Panasonic

Source: Greener Gadgets 2010 Video: Joe Hutsko interviews HP and Panasonic execs | JOEyGADGET.

September 30, 2009, 9:30 AM

NYTimes.com | Green Inc.: Apple Expands Environmental Disclosures

By JOE HUTSKO

Apple last week updated its Apple and the Environment Web site to include a life cycle impact section that, the company says, accounts for its total carbon footprint of 10.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

The emissions, organized by category, include those arising from manufacturing (38 percent); transportation (5 percent); product use (53 percent); facilities (3 percent); and recycling (1 percent).

“Because 53 percent of Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the power our products consume, we design those products to be as energy-efficient as possible,” the company stated on its new Web site, adding that “Mac OS X even regulates processor activity between keystrokes, saving milliwatts of energy.”

A recent BusinessWeek article reported that carbon emissions for Hewlett-Packard and Dell were 8.4 million tons and 471,000 tons respectively. However, both companies “exclude product use and at least some manufacturing,” the article noted, and those companies “have said that including those factors would boost their carbon totals several-fold.”

Downloadable reports for all of Apple’s existing and recently retired products provide detailed breakdowns of each product’s environmental virtues (or shortcomings) — including whether it uses mercury-free LED displays or arsenic-free display glass. Also covered are the use of toxic substances like brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chlorides, which are noxious when burned.

Apple says that all of its handheld products — iPhones and iPods — are now “PVC-free,” and that the majority of circuit boards and internal cables in its plastic-housed MacBooks are free of BFRs and PVCs. It also describes its remaining desktop, notebook, display and server products as being “BFR-free” and having “PVC-free internal cables.”

Asked whether any other electronics manufacturers are reporting the CO2 life-cycle impact for entire product lines, Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International’s toxics campaigner, said, “Not the way Apple is.”

“Others are doing some interesting reporting of their supply-chain emissions,” he added, “and HP is doing a lot of work there.”

via Apple Expands Environmental Disclosures – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com.

Excellent story in the New York Times about advances in making it easier to properly dispose of unwanted or hopelessly useless consumer electronics products.

Read the full story at: A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics – NYTimes.com.

via A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics – NYTimes.com | JOEyGADGET.

Following up on Saturday’s post on five ways to properly unload your cellphone is a link to RBRC.org (Rechargeable Battery Recycling Program). Type in your zip code and RBRC will point you to the nearest drop-off location to discard dead or unwanted rechargeable batteries (and cell phones too). With more than 50,000 collection locations nationwide you’ll likely find one just around the corner (as I found here).

Ditching your old mobile phone for a better-stronger-faster iPhone 3G or Blackberry Bold? Great, but be sure to do the world a favor and dispose of your old phone in a green-tech friendly such as those described in the EcoLocalizer story Five Green Ways to Dispose of That Old Cell Phone.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the story, FYI:

Cell phones contain a number of toxins that build up in the environment over time, like arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc. These chemicals are linked to all sorts of nasty health problems, such as neurological disorders and cancer.

As for the smashed-screen iPhone in the picture, that was mine. I dropped it the night before the new iPhone 3G went on sale. I’d had no intention of buying the new iPhone 3G right away, and was going to wait for the crowds to die down and bug fixes to take care of any first-run issues that would likely crop up. But fate stepped in and somehow my hand knocked the device off my desk and onto the floor with all the grace of the Diving Horse that used to plunge from its perch atop a pool on Atlantic City’s Steel Pier. Ironically enough I wound up at the Apple Store on the Atlantic City Boardwalk to stand in line with more than a hundred others to acquire the new model (though not without some bribery on my part on account of I needed to get to NYC before 5 p.m. to talk about the new iPhone 3G on Fox’s Happy Hour program).

Despite the smashed screen my old phone fetched more than $200 on eBay – an option that isn’t mentioned in the EcoLocalizer story but one worth considering if your “old” mobile phone is still new enough to fetch a good price on eBay or Craigslist.org.