San Francisco city agencies plan to boycott Apple
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller announces the new MacBook Pro during the keynote address during the Apple 2012 World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Moscone West on June 11, 2012 in San Francisco, California. According to reports Apple is expected to unveil a slew of new hardware and software updates at the company’s annual developer conference which runs through June 15.
Do you work for the city of San Francisco? Your next work computer might be a PC. Apple recently decided to stop participating in a government program that encourages computer companies to go green. The San Francisco city government was not happy about this. So San Francisco fought back: city officials are now trying to get all San Francisco city agencies to boycott Apple computers, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Apple Insider first broke the news last week that Apple would no longer be catering to mother nature. Apple's 39 computers have previously been certified as environmentally-friendly by EPEAT, an electronics standards group funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. In order to get the EPEAT's green label, computer companies must make products that are efficient and easy for recyclers to disassemble. But an Apple employee told EPEAT officials that the company no longer wanted Apple computers to be EPEAT-certified.
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In addition, tech experts say that the new MacBook Pro with Retina display has a number of problems that make it unfriendly to the environment. “If the battery is glued to the case it means you can’t recycle the case and you can’t recycle the battery,” EPEAT's CEO told Apple Insider, speaking about the new MacBook.
"We regret that Apple will no longer be registering its products in EPEAT," EPEAT said in a statement.
In its proposed boycott, San Francisco isn't trying to be vengeful. Legally, the city would actually be required to stop buying Apple products. Under United States government rules, 95 percent of all electronics purchased by city agencies must have the EPEAT label, BBC News reported.
"We hope that the city saying it will not buy Apple products will make Apple reconsider its participation," Melanie Nutter, director of San Francisco’s Department of Environment, told the Wall Street Journal.