Apple Gives Itself Gold EPEAT Rating on Retina MacBook Pro, Others Disagree

Apple has given itself a Gold EPEAT rating for the new Retina Display MacBook Pro; however, the Electronics TakeBack Coalition disagrees.

Recently, the Cupertino company was criticized for withdrawing from the environmental rating system; however, it admitted a mistake and rejoined the program.

While we are very glad to see that Apple has rejoined the EPEAT program, we are astonished to see that in reposting its products to the EPEAT registry, Apple has actually listed four versions of the Mac Book Pro with retina as EPEAT Gold level products. We seriously doubt that these Mac Books should qualify for EPEAT at any level because we think they flunk two required criteria in the "Design for End of Life" section of the standard.


They are:
● Criterion 4.3.1.3: External enclosures shall be easily removable by one person alone with commonly available tools.
--- While you can open up the enclosure, you can't completely remove one half of the casing from the large group of batteries. They are glued to the case with industrial strength glue.

● Criterion 4.3.1.5 Identification and removal of components containing hazardous materials.
--- This criteria specifically applies to batteries, as well as circuit boards over 10 cm2 and other components, and says they must be safely and easily removable. Gluing the battery in does not quality as "easily removable." In fact, it's exactly the kind of design that this standard seeks to discourge.

Barbara Kyle, the ETBC's National Coordinator, explains that "manufacturers grade themselves against the EPEAT criteria first, and then EPEAT conducts a review of this grading. That EPEAT review has not yet occurred. They can require the manufacturers to remove any product from the registry if it is not found to conform to the IEEE standard."

Read More [via Niam]