I have often wondered how India’s tech savvy lot gets all worked up when the latest iPhone (or iPad) or Android model gets a delayed launch in the country. We remind these companies of our growing superpower status and booming economy and importance of Indian market and demand a status of equality.
Have we ever asked these companies about their recycling policy in India? Almost all the computer and electronics companies have ‘take-back’ programs in US and Europe where the customers can hand over their old product of the brand for recycling. But what about India? Apple doesn’t have a take-back policy for India whereas they started for US in April 2006. Samsung started it in March 2011 but surprisingly have kept it under wraps. Only Nokia has a good take-back program and they encouraged people to actually use it.
But even if all the e-waste gets recycled how good it would do to all of us? Take a look at the latest edition of ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ published by Greenpeace. As the page says: “This guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change”. On a score of 0-10, 0 indicates worst and 10 indicates best.
Out of 18 companies, 10 score less than 5! Nintendo takes the dubious honor of scoring least with a pathetic score of 1.8. Don’t think that this makes any impact on the minds of those buying a Wii. Not very far from last spot is Microsoft with a measly 2 and though Apple joins them in below 5 club, Cupertino’s score is more than double of Redmond’s, a 4.9.
Other members of under 5 club: Toshiba, LG, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Acer, Sharp and Dell.
And now a fact which would have been funny, if it was not tragic. Out of the remaining 8 companies, 6 lie between 5 and 6! These ‘super 6′ are Philips, HP, Samsung, Motorola, Panasonic and Sony Electronics.
At no. 2 is Sony Ericsson with a score of 6.8. The guide says “It is the best performer on the toxic chemicals criteria of all the ranked brands, being the first to score full marks on all chemicals criteria”. And at no. 1 is Nokia. They may not be at the top of mobile phones anymore but atleast they are on top of this ranking with a score of 7.5. But the guide says that Nokia ‘does least well on e-waste issues.’ So may be they need to do a bit more.
So let’s come back to original question. With devices full of harmful toxins, how good it would be even if these devices are recycled. What other alternative we have but that companies are made to take back their junk.
