Media Mindfulness

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As the hype machine salivates over Steve Jobs‘ announcement of the the new iPhone (at a whopping $400 price tag!), Greenpeace is pushing for a better ecology policy at Apple. At issue is the continued built-in obsolescence of Apple’s products (as a Mac user, you can imagine the frustration of the constant equipment upgrades that have leapfrogged me over the past few years), and the toxic by-product of used computers and batteries. The trailer above is for a movie, Digital Dump, which documents the journey of hi-tech junk. So while I love my Powerbook, at the same time I have to keep in mind that the consumption of electronics and their attendant dream world have a direct environmental impact, from toxic waste to the carbon emissions by-product of the electricity I use to produce media. For more information about digital dumping, go to the Basel Action Network. Also, you can read this great article from Solon.com, “Where computers go to die– and kill.”

The photo below is from a Chinese computer scrapyard where poor people extract precious metals from computer parts.

Exposing Apple’s Core | Greenpeace USA:

Getting to the Core

As this year’s MacWorld expo kicked off in San Francisco, we wanted to show the participants what’s really beneath the skin of their favorite Apple products. Greenpeace activists projected giant images of the Asian scrapyards where many electronic products - including those made by Apple - end up at the end of their lives. Images of electronics being melted down, taken apart and releasing toxic chemicals were displayed above the front of the Apple store.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone