If you’ve seen or read anything about the new Macbooks, you’ll know they were designed with the environment in mind. While Apple’s “green” goals aren’t exactly under-the-radar, the rest of the technology industry’s eagerness to jump on the bandwagon has been.
The other day, however, Wired published an article outlining the development, pointing to the recent recession as a main cause. Will the United States follow in the footsteps of Europe? Only time will tell:
Other than saving money, the industry-wide shift toward cleaner tech is also being driven by new laws regarding electronic waste. In 2003, the European Union passed the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive Act, which requires manufacturers to take responsibility for recycling their products after consumers discard them. In other words, if Sony sells a TV to a European customer, Sony has to take the TV back and recycle it at the end of the device’s life. While the directive is only directly affecting Europe, it’s spreading to the United States and Asia, too: Many big tech manufacturers operate internationally, and it’d be both inefficient and costly to make an eco-friendly product for Europe and a dirtier version of the same gadget for another country.
See also Al Gore’s NY Times op-ed about climate change. A rehashing of Nobel-winning ideas has never sounded so good.