Well I approach this issue from a different perspective and viewing it from this perch may cause someone to conclude that I am anti-happyfeet or some such anti-ness, of which I clearly am not. My tree hugging pedigree goes all the back to my participation the Whole Earth Catalog, but there are limits and lines in the sandbox although grainy at times.
Pizza Hut is not responsible for the recycling of their packaging or the byproducts of their deluxe pie when my Grolsch is done with it, it is my responsibility to dispose of my waste products and I pay good money in taxes for the luxury.
I pay additional money for a recycling program and worked too hard to have it implemented in my city to have Apple steal my recycling products without paying my taxes.
I’ve been a member of Greenpeace in the past and a current member of a few other environmental concerns presently, and I’m well aware of the need for these organizations to be proactive and their tendency to get mission creep. In the case of holding manufacturers liable for recycling retail products is where I draw the line. If a company wants to have their products and packaging returned to them it’s their option, and if it paints them in a Green Hue, great, but to imply that any company is not environmentally conscience because you don’t send your iBook back to San Francisco to be trashed, or to have a company in San Francisco tell me or my city where to stuff it, is beyond all logic.
Along with city operated recycling utilities we have commercial entities that will come to your house or business and pick up your “White Products” (stoves, refrigerators and such) for free. There is a very large electronic recycling company that will take anything that plugs-in or runs on batteries for free, so why would I need to bring my G3 to the Apple Store, forcing the condition that would make them add storage space or loose retail space, or send it to the West Coast when there are clearly better options?
Obviously Greenpeace has gone overboard on this issue and with little more that a working iBook I could prove that their dumb policy is more harmful to the environment and economy than individuals recycling their own waste. Placing the responsibility on the customer and creating recycling programs in communities is where the future lies. If there are components of these recycled items that the manufacturer would like to have, well then they can buy them back, in volume, efficiently and Greenpeace should focus their resources on more pressing issues.
