Greenpeace painted Hewlett-Packard green Tuesday in protest that the company's backtracked on its "commitment" to eliminate toxic materials such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in computing products. HP originally pledged to end the use of the toxins by end of 2009, but recently said it won't be ready until 2011.
In contrast, Greenpeace ranked Nokia as the No.1 hardware maker in its purity rankings. The company got high marks for launching new models free of PVC since the end of 2005 and is aiming to have all new models free of all brominated and chlorinated compounds and antimony trioxide from the start of 2010. Nokia, however, disappointed Greenpeace with its recycling rate which the company said is 3 to 5 percent.
