Apple recently released their new line of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, which are mainly made from aluminium. They say that they are their greenest latops ever and claims that they are “highly recyclable and even more energy efficient”, and that they are “designed with the environment in mind”.

But really, how green are the new laptops?

Greenpeace, who is running a hard and successful campaign for greener electronics, says that the new laptops are “not quite the breakthrough” they “were hoping for”:

“A check of the full specs revealed the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air – as well as the LED Cinema Display will now have internal cables free of PVC and will have internal components containing no BFRs. Not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for. These new MacBooks are currently on a similar level of toxics reduction to the Sony Viao laptop series on PVC, and the Lenovo Think Vision in monitors. The BFR free internal components represent an improvement from the bar set by the Vaio line.”

Hank Green, over at EcoGeek, is a bit more negative saying the new laptops are “wasteful”:

“I’m glad to see Apple focusing on the efficiency of their computers, not to mention decreasing the amount of toxic materials they contain. But this new carved-brick process isn’t green, it’s wasteful, and I’m happy to be sticking with my good-ol’ plastic clunker.”

Jaymi Heimbuch, from TreeHugger, on the other hand is a bit more positive:

“It seems that this process allows the MacBook Pro to use 50% fewer parts. In the manufacturing stage, they start with a 2.5 pound piece of aluminum. The end structure is only 0.5 pounds (for the MacBook Air). That means that 2 pounds of aluminum is cut away.

Nevertheless, it looks like this process, despite flaws, has some real improvements for the notebook in the big picture of its lifetime and total footprint.”

Apple explains how green their MacBook and MacBook Pro are on their website.

The MacBook Air is Apple’s latest work of art. It’s slim and looks awesome. But what about the laptops green credentials then? Is it greener than the iMac?

Well, it seems that finally Steve Jobs is on the right path to a greener Apple. The new MacBook Air is completely free from mercury and arsenic. That means it exceeds the Standards (RoHS directive exemptions).

The new MacBook Air’s motherboard is, just like Sony and their Vaio notebooks, free from BFR and PVC. Unfortunately the MacBook Air isn’t entirely free from hazardous chemicals. It still contains PVC and BFRs, but less than other Mac computers.

So will this new MacBook Air make Apple gain a better spot in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics? Maybe they will, but Greenpeace still wants a “real global commitment to take back and recycling” saying they can “almost taste that Green Apple”, but “unfortunately it’s not ripe yet”.

So what about the energy consumption? As you know laptops are generally much better than the stationary (desktop) computers when it comes to power consumption. And the MacBook Air is no exception. The MacBook Air consumes about 7.4 watts and meets Energy Star 4.0 standards and attained a Silver EPEAT rating.

The energy wasting light bulbs will be replaced with either CFLs or LEDs.

According to the US congress the incandescent light bulb ban will save around $40 billion and USA would need about 14 fewer coal-fired power plants, thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 million tons.

Image credit: Cabezadeturco. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Last week Apple released their brand new iMac to the world. Like always its one heck of a design and the computer looks great.

But how green is this new iMac? After a massive campaign where Greenpeace and thousands of Apple users demanded Apple to become greener and the growing global warming threat this is one hot topic these days.

Steve Jobs have said that “recycling has been kept in mind from the ground up” in the making of the new iMac. Steve has also posted a green manifesto where he talks about how green Apple will become.

But what about the new iMac then!? Well, to be honest it’s not much to hang in the tree.

So far there has been no word about how the new iMacs EPEAT rating will be. On the brighter side the new iMac have no problems matching the standards of the EPA’s new, more strict, Energy Star guidelines.

The new iMac display is now made with glass and they have replaced the plastic front side with aluminium while they have kept the plastic on the back side. These new things are easier to recycle but they are energy intensive to create.

But there is still no word about a global take back program. And Apple still uses hazardous chemicals like PVC, BFRs, Lead and other heavy metals. Not even the screen is, that Steve promised in his green manifesto, using LED back-lit monitors (LED backlights mean brighter, whiter, longer-lasting and less power-hungry monitors).

Like Giona over at Making Waves said: “One of the pictures that Steve Jobs used in his last presentation showed how the new iMac looks much nicer than the one of their competitors. Next time I would like to see that they are really different, inside too“.