Greenpeace Complains Game Consoles Aren't Green Enough

jasoncart writes "None of the major games consoles are 'green enough', says environmental group Greenpeace in a report released today. Zeina Al-Hajj, Greenpeace's International Toxic Campaign co-ordinator, said: "We were shocked with Nintendo; it was our biggest surprise." The company is described by the group as the least 'green' tech firm."

Green ?! Jesus, they are not SAFE enough

[unity100 (970058)]

every 1-2 years they put out a console that explodes from some of its parts from some brands. they need to make consoles explosion free before making them green.

Re:Green ?! Jesus, they are not SAFE enough

[maxume (22995)]

In any case, you shouldn't be licking your console.

Re:Green ?! Jesus, they are not SAFE enough

[Dancindan84 (1056246)]

Completely botched the opportunity for

In any case, you shouldn't be licking your Wii. Even if you can.

modern times ...

[unity100 (970058)]

one has to watch his balls even playing console games ...

Sigh..

[Rurik (113882)]

More useless propaganda, and the idiots that fall for it.

For the last two years, Nintendo has been rated the worst. But, not because that is the truth. They are rated that way because they refuse to disclose their environmental methods. And, by disclose, I mean that Nintendo didn't have that information readily available on their website.

See this follow-up report [arstechnica.com] from Ars Technica.

In other words: nothing to see here; move along.

Re:Sigh..

[Tsoat (1221796)]

'Greenpeace reserves the right to arbitrarily change a company's score if they decide the company did something disagreeable' I tkae this as popularity points so to speak, the companies have to "suck up" to them if they don't want to "lose" points. I find this whole thing utterly ridiculous. Im surprised JT hasn't reared his ugly head.

Re:Sigh..

[samkass (174571)]

This is the same thing that Greenpeace tried to do to Apple. Despite having one of the best records in the industry, Greenpeace rated them "worst" because they didn't publish enough details or promise to do things in the future. Other companies which were in much worse shape but promised things in the future got better ratings. In other words, Greenpeace appears to value words over actions.

The Wii uses a small fraction of the electricity of the other two consoles. If all Wii sales had been PS3 or XBox360 sales, the environment would be a lot worse off.

Re:Sigh..

[elrous0 (869638)]

Doesn't anyone even pay attention to Greenpeace's bitching anymore? I mean, if you've got someone who tells you every day that the sky is falling, no matter what you do, how long before you just tune them out?

Re:Sigh..

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

The wii uses 11 watts of power at standby by default because of the WiiConnect24 feature. Nintendo designed it so it it checks in with wifi while 'off' for updates and other tasks. This right here is a good example of bad engineering. Instead of turning this on selectively (or turned on by games that might need it), its on by default and it just eats up power. Its like leaving a new CFL bulb on 24/7. That might not seem like a lot but multiply that by the units sold and you're seeing one of the worst standby machines on the market.

Power consumption, my friends

[hengdi (1202709)]

According to this http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/08/wii-the-greenes.html/ [wired.com], the Wii uses 17 watts of energy, compared to the PS3's 171 watts and the 360 Elite's 194 watts.

Doesn't this make th Wii the greenest? OK, so it may not be the easiest to recycle, but it's an order of magnitude better on power consumption!

Yeah yeah, no environmental policy.

[NeoOokami (528323)]

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faq.jsp#environment [nintendo.com] Assuming you ignore that. This is a repeat of old news anyways. Their criticisms of Nintendo basically boil down to them not having an answer to everything on their checklist exactly how they like it. Greenpeace means well but they tend to demonstrate a horrifying lack of thought or genuine consideration of anything other than their own agenda.

Re:Yeah yeah, no environmental policy.

[maxume (22995)]

Using whatever methods you feel like in following your own agenda is not the same thing as meaning well.

re: Greenpeace means well??

[King_TJ (85913)]

I think you give them FAR too much credit with that statement! IMHO, they DON'T "mean well" by any stretch of the imagination! They're on a rampage with a skewed agenda - and it's important for people to see them for what they are, a group of radical environmental extremists.

If you REALLY want to encourage positive changes in our "environmental footprint" - you need to do it with education and promoting scientific advances. Research in creating lower power-consumption devices, improved battery technology, an HONEST and REASONABLE approach to the subject of "recycling" ... these are all good moves. Harassing businesses and publishing negative reports about their products just makes you lose your credibility.

Straight off the website

[neochubbz (937091)]

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faq.jsp [nintendo.com]

What does Nintendo do to help protect the environment?

Nintendo is very concerned with doing our part to help preserve the environment. We're always researching new products and procedures to make our products and operations as environmental-friendly as possible.

Some things Nintendo is already doing:

• In Nintendo of America offices:

• We recycle the paper we use company-wide.
• We limit our use of colored paper, since it's not easily recycled.
• We purchase recycled paper towels, report covers, message pads, and writing pads.
• We currently recycle more than 70% of the waste that is generated at our headquarters.
• We actively promote the recycling of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and glass in our corporate cafeterias.
• We re-use or recycle over 99% of any returned product that we receive from retailers and customers

• In our products:

• We use at least 80% recycled paper in all of our shipping packaging.
• We don't use Styrofoam in any of our packaging.
• Many of our instruction manuals are printed on recycled paper.
• Our clamshell packaging is recyclable and most recycling centers accept it.
• As is stated in the manuals of the Wii console and DS Lite, neither product contains latex, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). Additionally, we have been phasing out the use of PVC in our packaging, using a safer, recyclable plastic instead.
• We take great care to comply with all relevant regulations on avoiding the use of dangerous materials. All Nintendo products supplied worldwide are designed to comply with relevant global standards. In order to certify that Nintendo products comply with standards for hazardous chemical substances, Nintendo has established the Green Procurement Standards, which require our component suppliers to certify that any parts they deliver do not include hazardous chemical substances, and ensure that Nintendo fully controls its products internally.

Just Picking the "hippest" target

[MaizeMan (1076255)]

Face it, this is just like green peace singling out Apple as the computer company they were going to harass about manufacturing methods. They pick the brand best known to their political base and go after it for practices shared by the whole industry because they get a lot more press coverage attacking a "hip" company like Nintendo or Apple, than a boring one like HP or Microsoft.

What's so hard about re-usable materials?

[tjstork (137384)]

Look, I'm an old, angry, Republican, and not one of these tree hugging types, but I think Greenpeace has a really good point.

I mean, check this out. When I was a kid, TV's were put into wooden cabinets. Steel was used for a lot of structural things. Plastic was considered cheap and the knock on Japan was that it was all "cheap plastic stuff".

Well, fast forward almost 40 years later and what do we find. Plastic stuff is really not all that recyclable, it comes from petroleum, so, when it really boils down to it, plastic actually really does suck as much as the old timers said that it did.

Why can't they make a video game enclosure or a computer enclosure out of some kind of wood? Or, make controllers out of some kind of steel? Wood is at least renewable and steel is the most recycled thing there is. It just seems to be madness to be making more plastic junk out there when we already have mountains of this stuff.

Re:What's so hard about re-usable materials?

[oahazmatt (868057)]

Or, make controllers out of some kind of steel?

If the very first Xbox controller was made out of steel it would be like holding a small Buick in your lap.

Yes, and?

[Auckerman (223266)]

What do they expect? Industrialized societies destroy their surroundings. From shipping products, to driving to the store to buy it, all the way to the manufacturing process. The best you can honestly hope for these days is that the product doesn't poison your kids and even that isn't a guarantee. To call out "consoles" over, say computers in general, is merely an attempt to ride the media buzz surrounding a market that isn't being hampered in the United States during it's recession.

To be honest, I could never take these guys seriously anyways. They aren't interested to solutions or working within the economic reality of the planet, they seem to want to end the industrial revolution and have everyone go back to farming. Nuclear power, nope. Working with companies to make an imperfect process better, while letting it remain imperfect, nope can't do that rather continue to yell at them from over here rather than work with them. It's all or none.

Nature conservancy is an example of a environmental group actually making a real difference. Green peace is a bunch of self important attention whores.

A word to Greenpeace

[moosesocks (264553)]

Learn how to choose your battles.

To me, Greenpeace is almost completely irrelevant as an organization, and have lost pretty much all of their credibility. They oppose everything, and offer very few practical solutions to the world's ills, whilst continuing to decry virtually anything fashionable or popular.

As a result of their anti-nuclear tactics, construction of new nuclear plants stopped, and a great many coal plants were constructed instead, which had a far more hazardous effect on the environment as a whole. Heck.... wildlife in the areas around Chernobyl are doing quite well thanks to the complete lack of human activity in the area.

Instead of encouraging us to all drive electric cars, the enviromentalists should have been promoting hybrids as a reasonably practical segue into developing electric cars. Now that hybrids have been proven to be practical and effective, companies are turning their attention to plug-in hybrids and true EVs.

Instead of demanding full and widespread adoption of wind and solar power, they should have been encouraging experiments with small-scale wind and solar farms, as well as more R&D into those two technologies. Small wind farms have slowly proven to be practical and economical in certain areas, and if NanoSolar can keep true to their word on production costs, we should be seeing solar panels being printed onto every exterior surface imaginable over the next few years.

The thing is....you can't force a revolution. GreenPeace need to learn that they might actually have a chance of achieving their goals by lightly prodding industry and consumers in the right direction.

Instead of proclaiming "GAMES, NINTENDO EVIL," perhaps they could instead publish a headline such as "Greenpeace study finds that Nintendo could drastically cut landfill waste by using biodegradable hemp-based plastics for just $0.02USD per unit"

Perhaps that's a bit of a mouthful, but it's a lot more likely to provoke a response from the public: "Hey, why don't they do that? Sounds awfully selfish of them not to," and a resoponse from the company: "Hey, why don't we do this? It'll help us improve our image, and won't cost much"

Re:Well yeah

[eln (21727)]

That's not true, I painted my Wii green so I could get in on this whole "green" trend. I found just the right paint, too. It's whale-oil based paint with some dolphin fin ground in for strength. I found this great paintbrush made with spotted owl feathers to apply the paint, and as a bonus I made a little cozy for my wiimote from giant panda fur.

I'm going to send some pictures of my new setup to Greenpeace, I hope they'll feature them on their website.

Re:Well yeah

[polar red (215081)]

errr ... don't laugh. That exists : http://www.hempplastic.com/ [hempplastic.com]

Re:Who Cares?

[garett_spencley (193892)]

I agree.

Greenpeace has every right to whine and bitch and express themselves. But slashdot is giving them a voice every time they chose to whine and bitch about a technology company and that's annoying.

Free speech is glorious but it doesn't give the individuals the right to be heard.

But then, it gets us whining and bitching which fuels the community so there's what slashdot gets out of it in a nutshell. I suppose it's a case of don't feed the trolls. It would be a nice fairy tale if, the next time the editors post a story about greenpeace, NOT A SINGLE PERSON COMMENTS.

Alas, I'm dreaming.

That's a bit of a fallacy.

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

Greenpeace != Terrorist organization

Still, asking those bastards their opinion about any electronics is pointless. They won't be happy until it runs on fairy dust (harvested from free-range fairies, of course).

Greenpeace is a great example of one of the environmental organizations that give environmentalism its freaky leftist reputation. The environment is not a left or right issue; we all live here, we all should care.

But having an organization who honestly believes we should abandon most aspects of our current technological society in order to be more in tune with the planet polarizes the issue, and drives more moderate people away.

This is a great example, along with all the rest of their consumer electronics whinging lately. That stuff is minor league in terms of global pollution problems, but they know that they have a better chance of getting the boomers to protest apple or microsoft than they do of persuading them to give up their hummers.

Re:Who Cares?

[Nicolay77 (258497)]

Only if Greenpeace would speak with truth.

After the Apple issue, I will no longer listen to these zealots on anything regarding electronic technology.

Once a liar, always a liar.

Re:Actual Report

[falcon5768 (629591)]

Its not a lack of disposal policy, its the fact that they refuse to disclose it to Greenpeace which makes them mad. All three of the systems use BFR and PVC