[rescue] where have all the Sun monitors gone?

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, John Floren wrote:

> Isn't Apple planning on accepting all computer waste that people bring
> in, Apple or not? Or was that just a Greenpeace appeasement move that
> will never be implemented except in Seattle and San Francisco?

Jobs' response to the Greenpeace thing was pretty level-headed.
Greenpeace dinged Apple on a number of things versus Dell, HP, and so on
for not having detailed plans in place to do X, Y, and Z (eliminating
lead, reducing mercury, safer plastics, accepting recycling) when Dell,
HP, and Levnovo had public plans to do so.

What they didn't mention was that Apple didn't have future plans for
these things because they were already -doing- them.  Apple's offered to
recycle my old system the last two or three times I've bought hardware
for them dating back at least two years.  They don't ship CRTs, and
their ICs and boards are almost entirely RoHS-compliant, so lead is at a
minimum.  They have plans to switch to LED-illuminated LCDs within the
year, so that would even take mercury out of the picture.  They switched
to safer plastics back around the time they shipped the first Power
Macs.

All while Dell and HP's plans specified dates in the next decade to
complete those steps.

Of course, Greenpeace's response to that was "Yay!  They heard us!  Now
they have plans to move in the same direction as Dell and HP!"
Pretentious wankers.

Regarding recycling, it's worth noting that Dell effectively killed the
small PC shops in Texas by lobbying for legislation to mandate that any
computer "manufacturer"[0] accept all the costs for recycling.  Now, I
don't think this is a bad idea in principle[2], but it's clearly a move
by Dell to squash competition.  However, from the reading of Section
361.952.5 and 361.954.b.1, the small shops might be able to dodge the
issue by including a PCI tuner card.


[0] The legislation[1] is vague enough on this point that you cold be a
     "manufacturer" by carrying the PC to the sale counter for a customer
     or by adding a video card.

[1] http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/80R/billtext/html/HB02714F.htm

[2] Actually, yes I do.  It's the consumer's responsibility.  The
     recycling part, however, I wholeheartedly endorse.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke ) "When they turn the pages of history, when these
Elgin, TX        (   days have passed long ago, will they read of us
USA               )  with sadness for the seeds that we let grow?
-                (               --Neil Peart, "A Farewell to Kings"