Feature story - May 23, 2006
US mobile phone company Motorola has backtracked on a promise to remove toxic chemicals from its products. While competitors like Sony Ericsson and Nokia are living up to their commitments to remove toxic chemicals, Motorola is not answering the call to clean up.
Motorola: breaking promises to remove toxic chemicals from its phones.
Over the last couple of years we have been pressuring leading
companiesto remove the most toxic chemicals from their products.
Withcompanies as diverse as H&M, Puma, Adidas, Hewlett Packard
andNokia, we have scored some notable successes.
Many chemicals ineveryday products are now common environmental
pollutants. Almost everyone has dozens of man-made chemicalsin
their body, and the effects of these chemical cocktails on our
healthare largely unknown.
Back in
October 2005 we congratulated Motorola for joining thegood guys
when they made toxic clean-up promises. In a July
2005 letter, Motorolacommitted to phase out all toxic
brominated flame retardants (BFRs) inits mobile phones by mid 2007
and to provide a phase out date for thehazardous plastic PVC by
March 2006. But after follow-up talks on theirprogress we received
a letter
on 15 May 2006 stating that Motorola cannot phase out BFRs and
PVC from their products.
Motorola's letter makes several excuses for not keeping
theirpromise. But other mobile phone companies have shown us
progress ratherthan excuses. Sony Ericsson has already removedBFRs
from all their models except one. Nokia has already removed PVC
inall new models and all new components will be free of BFRs from
1stJanuary 2007.
For the other companies that made commitments in 2004 and 2005
it istime to put words in to action. Both LG electronics and
Samsung arecurrently behind on their promises but still working
towardselimination of these toxic chemicals. Both companies have
large productranges from cameras to refrigerators that can make
elimination from thewhole product range more complex. Motorola
makes mainly mobile phonesso it doesn't even have the excuse of a
diverse product range.
Check out how the top electronics companies
compare on eliminating toxic chemicals and consider who you
want to get your money next time you go shopping for
electronics.
So Hello? Motorola? If your competitors can make their products greener, why can't you?
Take action
Strong laws are needed to force all companies to remove toxic chemicals from their products. Speak out in support of strong European law on toxic chemicals.
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