electronics | nerdjonistories

Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses

The prototype version Google showed off on Wednesday looked like a very polished and well-designed pair of wrap-around glasses with a clear display that sits above the eye. The glasses can stream information to the lenses and allow the wearer to send and receive messages through voice commands. There is also a built-in camera to record video and take pictures.

I received this email at work and had to share:

March’s Green Tech article in the Sustainability eNews:

How Green is the Apple iPad?

The third generation iPad is setting record sales with 3 million sold during its first weekend on the market as it hit the shelves on March 16. An estimated 55 million first and second generation iPads have been sold and Apple is expected to hit the 100 million iPad mark by the end of the year. That’s a lot of people using iPads! There have been some great sustainability use cases for using iPads in lieu of hefty paper based resources including schools providing iPads to students with preloaded digital textbooks and pilots using iPads loaded with digital flight manuals. What about the environmental impact of the iPad itself?

Apple prides itself on its environmental management of its products. Apple continually designs and engineers products to use less material, ship in smaller and less packaging, be free of toxic substances, and be increasingly energy efficient and recyclable. The iPad is no exception. The iPad 2 was designed to be 33% thinner and 15% lighter than the first generation iPad, thus producing 5% less carbon emissions. The iPad also uses a mercury-free LED backlit display, arsenic-free glass, and is free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phthalates. It also features a recyclable aluminum enclosure. The iPad uses power-efficient components and intelligent software to manage power consumption. Its 10W USB Power Adapter outperforms stringent ENERGY STAR requirements. The iPad packaging uses 28% post-consumer recycled corrugated cardboard and molded fiber made entirely from recycled content. The material efficiency of the iPad 2 allowed up to 52% more units to be transported in the airline shipping container than the first generation iPad, decreasing the transportation environmental impact.

If your iPad is broken or reaches the end of its useful life it can be easily recycled. Apple has recycling programs in 95% of the countries where it sells its products and has diverted over 115,504 metric tons of e-waste from landfills since 1994. The e-waste is processed locally in the region in which it was collected by regulated recyclers complying with all health and safety laws. The iPad is disassembled and the glass and metals are reprocessed for use in new products. Most of the plastics are pelletized into raw secondary material. With materials reprocessing and component reuse, Apple often achieves a 90% recovery rate by weight of the original product. Consumers also receive incentives to recycle old products, such as Apple Gift Cards or discounts on new products.

For a consumer electronic device, the iPad certainly exhibits some level of green and in certain use cases, further supports environmental sustainability efforts such as paper reduction.

The following resources have more information on Apple’s Environmental and Recycling Programs:
Apple Recycling Program – http://www.apple.com/recycling/
Apple and the Environment Website – http://www.apple.com/environment/
iPad 2 Environmental Report – http://images.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/iPad2_Product_Environmental_Report_2012.pdf

*This blog post was composed on an Apple iPad 2

nerdjonistories

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Tag Archives: electronics

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