Interview: Greenpeace's Al-Hajj Talks Green Consoles Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Interview: Greenpeace's Al-Hajj Talks Green Consoles Posted by XanTium | April 4 22:10 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From gamasutra.com: [QUOTE] International activist organization Greenpeace recently released an updated version of its report ranking the three current games consoles in terms of their environmental impact. We spoke to Al-Hajj, and asked about the report, and where she hopes the industry will go in the coming years. * What were your findings, on the whole? * First, as a component of it, you have to realise that all electronic appliances are compliant with a regulation from Europe called the ROHS - Restriction of Hazardous Substances. This directive was passed in the EU, and says that any product sold in that market needs to be free of lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and two types of polybrominated flame retardant. All the electronic industry players must comply with that, otherwise they can't sell their product in the EU market. And because it's a global industry, the impact of that directive is on a global level. All products are free of lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and two types of polybrominated flame retardant. The industry has already started to improve, but that's not enough. The amount of chemicals used by the industry, and the toxicity of the chemicals, is very high. We're challenging the industry to eliminate additional chemicals, like all types of polybrominated flame retardant and PVC. They're used by the industry, and when those products become waste, it's hazardous waste. None of the game console manufacturers have made any commitment to this, or put on the market a green device free of those additional chemicals. They're free of lead, cadmium and chromium - they have to be, because that's the law. To give you a comparison: Sony has a VAIO laptop that's free of PVC in most of its components, as well as polybrominated flame retardant, and they've eliminated lead in the screens now. That's not the case with their games consoles. That's the challenge for us: to make sure the industry starts implementing the changes they've made with other electronic products. The energy consumption is another element that we're now adding to our assessment of the industry, and we started doing that with the games consoles from the beginning. There is a huge difference between the three main consoles. * Have we seen a difference with the Xbox 360 over its lifecycle? * They're all improving, yes. They have the Elite one, which uses less energy than the original Xbox 360 - that one, on idle, used 170 watts, and they reduced it to 97 watts now. It's very obvious that they're all acting on the energy consumption. On the chemical use, we haven't seen a shift. We've seen promises, but no shift in reality. We're hoping that with the designs of the new devices that they're now working, those elements will feature. That's exactly why we launched this campaign at this time, because we know that they must all be designing right now and working on their new products. We hope that will influence them into looking at environment when doing that. [/QUOTE] Full Story: gamasutra.com

[Bandit5317]

Wow, it's pretty obvious to me that this Al-Hajj character really doesn't know a whole lot about the consoles that he's talking about, which seems to be a trend in just about all of these articles we see . We should get a rep from xbox-scene talking to whoever is interviewing these people, then we can set them straight on EVERYTHING . All newer 360s with falcon motherboards consume less power, and usually elites are actually the least likely to have falcon mobos. And about this ROHS solder s@#$, it's the worst solder ever made. Want a perfect example of how it can cause hardware failures in modern electronics, how about the 3RLOD (I'm not completely blaming the solder, but that is definitely a major contributing factor). If they really want to reduce hazardous materials like lead, they should look towards the automotive battery industry. I swear, half of the thing is made of solid lead. Anyone who's ever changed the battery in their car knows what I'm talking about.

[ThaCrip]

screw all these 'green' things... that crap is over exaggerated if you ask me in terms of 'environment damage' etc etc.

i dont mind people trying this green stuff but to force it on people is just bs (not saying he is but u get the idea as im just saying in general)

[lcprove]

go hug a tree you p**sy

[StrictPuppet]

As Bandit mentioned, it's the RoHS compliance that significantly contributes to the failure rate of 360s.

I like my flour bleached, my sugar refined, and my solder to have 60% lead.

[bucko]

screw all these 'green' things... that crap is over exaggerated if you ask me in terms of 'environment damage' etc etc.

i don't mind people trying this green stuff but to force it on people is just bs (not saying he is but u get the idea as I'm just saying in general)

Pff try live in the UK, they tax you an arm and a leg if you aint "green", and we a are tiny continent to the likes of China and India it sucks. Electricity, Gas you name any type of energy that aint green has gone up ridiculous amounts, because there excuse is "it aint green".

They should have never made the 360 Rohs, imho it's what has cause the ROD, the ball solder joints on the GPU pad melt to quickly compared to a normal solder joint thats what I've read anyway.

I'm all for greener stuff, but it's like the EU and the UK want to stride to far ahead than they actually can, for example hybrid cars to more damage to the Earth than good, they use way to much aluminum etc all stuff that takes a lot of energy to get out of the Earth so I really hate this green stuff. And the BBC and ITV etc exadurate far to much on it without knowing the facts etc, like they do a news article in a day about global warming any respectable scientist would spend at least a year researching the facts like last year they blamed the floods on global warming when in fact it was a 10 year cycle of "bad weather". Lets face it the Earth is an unstable planet and making the 360 Rohs is hardly going to make any difference what so ever.

[Chancer]

like last year they blamed the floods on global warming when in fact it was a 10 year cycle of "bad weather"

You really believe that?
What about the floods the previous year throughout the winter period, the merging of the seasons, mild winters etc. A small amount of research will tell you this not just a weather pattern.
10 year cycle of bad weather is nonsense. Something is going off, you didn't see the polar ice caps melting and the temperatures at the extremes?
We don't like it because as people we don't like change but it has to happen. When you get kids of your own you will view it differently...it is their futures you are protecting. Problem is some of the major contributors to Global warming do nothing whilst small countries are doing their bit and paying through the nose for it.
Yes I hate all this green shit as well but we are going to have to accept it and get on with it because it's not going away

screw all these 'green' things... that crap is over exaggerated if you ask me in terms of 'environment damage' etc etc.

Why not look into it and see what the reality is. The attitude that " the dogs on the loose are not a problem, because they ain't shitting in my yard or biting me" is a complacent one. The evidence is damning if you look into it. If you wait till it all comes on top it's too late.