NEC goes green

Darius Chang | Jun 05, 2006

Though consumer technology is a relatively new field, the sheer amount of electronics due to the rapid turnover and upgrades has seen some older models turning up at dump sites. In the bid for faster and cheaper machines, environmental concerns have been put on a back burner with lead, mercury and other dangerous chemicals emerging in the manufacture of high-tech toys.

NEC is the latest in line--joining the ranks of Toshiba, ASUS, Fujitsu, etc.--to meet the European Union's Directive on the Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) for the manufacture of PCs. To qualify gor an RoHS rating. there are six groups of dangerous substances which should not be used due to the possibility of environmental contamination: Lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium (a chemical made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich), polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). There seems to be no apparant standardization of logos on the Web site to identify RoHS-compliant products, but we've noted at least Toshiba notebooks have a sticker to identify them as eco-friendly.

The first eco-friendly notebooks by the Japanese vendor are the Versa S5200 and upcoming Versa P8210. However, be aware that even though these notebooks do not contain the restricted chemicals, proper disposal procedures should still be exercised as, to date, there are still no biodegradable systems invented yet.