Minimize the toxic cocktail from your computer

Tags: bio-accumulative, chemical substances, chemicals, cocktail of chemicals, computers, defence of the unborn, dioxins, e-waste, flame retardant, hazardous substances, IT equopment, presticides, recycling, RoHS, stefan Jarl, Submission, TCO label

We are constantly exposed to new chemicals – through the air we breathe, the food we eat, what we drink and through our skin. Young people today have higher concentration of chemicals such as brominated flame retardants than ever before. Studies have shown that newborns have on average around 200 synthetic chemicals in their blood, chemicals like pesticides, dioxins and flame retardants. Levels in our environment, including our food and water, keep on increasing.

No one knows what effect these chemicals have on us, on animals or the environment – especially not in this complicated mix, the “cocktail” of chemicals we are exposed to today. The Swedish film-maker Stefan Jarl recently made a documentary Submission – in defence of the unborn, featuring 23 professors from around the world. In the documentary Jarl seeks to find out just what problems these chemicals can cause, and the lingering effects they can have on unborn children. Have a look at a trailer for this interesting movie here  (the trailer is in English).

IT equipment contains plenty of different hazardous metals, chemicals and materials. Legislation has prohibited a few (the EU RoHS directive for instance) but there is so much more that needs to be done. Tonnes of E-waste are being burned in backyards in China or Africa, polluting both the environment and us – these chemicals are both persistent and bio-accumulative and travel far. One group of substances causing a lot of concerns is the halogenated, specifically the brominated and chlorinated. When the E-waste is burned under insufficient conditions – as a lot of the millions of tonnes of E-waste are today – hazardous dioxins, furans and other chemicals are released. These are then transferred to our food, water and finally, to us.

So what should we do? We can obviously not wait for our legislators to prohibit all potentially harmful substances. When it comes to IT equipment and the chemicals they contain there are several things we can do ourselves.

1. Buy eco labelled products! The TCO certification program prohibited brominated and chlorinated substances and materials and hazardous metals in the certified products 1995 – over 10 years before the European RoHS directive. And we have continuously added and toughened the requirements since then. 
2. Use your vacuum cleaner at home. A lot. It reduces the amount of brominated flame retardants, phthalates and other harmful substances flying around in your home.
3.  Have plenty of green plants at home. They also purify indoor air from harmful chemicals.
4. Leave your old electronics and all other hazardous waste for recycling – it reduces the amount of hazardous chemicals in the community in the long run.

A Christmas Carousel

Tags: cutting edge technology, eco display, environment, Innovation, international legislation, Post consumer plastic, Recycle carousel, recycling, TCO Edge, ThinkVision L2251x Wide

“An Optimist sees a possibility in every problem”

Do you like me wish for companies to manufacturer their products to meet more than just the minimum of what is environmentally legislated?
And like me do you also wish for manufacturers to go that extra mile and produce something special within environment & usability with a so called Cutting Edge technology?
Once in a while we get what we wish for when a company comes with an innovation that goes beyond international legislation and our own already tough TCO criteria and challenges other companies to follow-suit.
To highlight products that do this, we created an innovative award scheme called TCO Edge.

The first on our TCO Edge podium was: Lenovo with a computer display named ThinkVision L2251x Wide.
Why did this display get the award?
Well, as consumers many of us take our plastic to the recycle stations in the hope that it will actually be used to make new products and not be burnt or end up in land fills. This display is all about exploiting those efforts, by taking our old plastic to make new.
It’s carousel recycling at its best, since this display amazingly is held together using 65% Post Consumer Plastic. It’s not like creating a fleece jumper from a cocktail of plastic bottles, if it was it wouldn’t be cutting edge. A display’s plastic needs to be of a better quality, therefore it’s a more complicated process to obtain. Companies so far have only managed approx 25% PCP content.

We’ve now been shown what is possible and by putting our TCO Edge mark on this display we want to show you the easy choice if you want to put a top notch eco display on your Christmas wish list.

Together with a company like this we’re gradually breaking the chain of our usage of raw materials. Let’s hope other companies take up the challenge so that 65% will not be thought cutting edge but the norm when Christmas comes around again.