Greenest Macbooks ever still not green enough

Apple says it has designed the new range with the environment in mind, and has completely eradicated the use of mercury and arsenic in its displays.

The company has also stopped using brominated fire retardants (BFR) in its logic boards and PVC in internal cabling.

Power consumption has also been addressed with new routines to wind down hard drives when not in use, automatically dim displays in low light situations and throttle back CPU draw when it's not being pushed too hard.

All in all Apple reckons the new range draws less juice than a quarter of a lightbulb.

Apple also reckons that the new Macbooks are "almost entirely recyclable" and being made of high value materials like aluminium and glass makes them very unlikely to end up in land-fill sites.

But TomD from Greenpeace's Making Waves blog said that this was "not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for".

Apple is planning to be PVC and BFR free across its entire range by the end of the year.

theinquirer.net (c) 2010 Incisive Media

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