Two EU directives due to come into force in the near future have seen manufacturers of electronic equipment look for more environmentally friendly substances to use within their products, writes John Collins

With EU regulations requiring electronics manufacturers to recycle their products and reduce the use of hazardous substances in their production set to come into force over the next year, technology companies have started to talk up their green credentials.

Items such as PCs, MP3 players, printers and other popular electronics contain dangerous substances such as lead, mercury and dioxins, which are a pollution hazard if they are dumped in landfills at the end of their productive life.

In recent years, some manufacturers have been attempting to phase out the use of such chemicals and designing their products to make them more easily recyclable. Others are only starting to act now as the EU says it will ban the sale of products that do not meet its minimum standards.

There are two relevant directives that have been transposed into Irish law and which will force manufacturers to clean up their acts.

The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive, which requires companies selling electronic equipment in the EU to finance their collection and recycling, comes into force in August. The RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Subtances) applies to the same equipment and bans the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated biphenyl ethers (PBDE) in their manufacture. It will come into effect EU-wide from July 2006.

The issue of green electronics was highlighted this week with PC industry sources expressing disappointment that environmental considerations were not given more weight in a recent tender process for the supply of PCs to the Department of the Environment which has just been awarded. The department is the State agency with responsibility for monitoring the application of the directives in the Republic.

A spokesperson for the department has denied that it did not take waste and environmental decisions into consideration when choosing a supplier, although he would not discuss the details of suppliers bids as they would be "commercially sensitive" and, therefore, fall outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

"The tenders for the supply of computers were judged according to five different criteria," according to the spokesperson. "These included environmental considerations as well as packaging and waste management."

Documents accompanying the request for tenders state that the contract will be awarded to the "the most economically advantageous tender" with a range of other weighted criteria being applied. The lowest ranked of the additional four criteria is "any special features to reduce the impacts on the environment at the manufacturing, operating and disposal stages with particular reference to energy consumption and packaging".

Manufacturing in a more environmentally friendly way presents a major challenge for the PC industry. It is struggling to meet the requirements of the EU directives while still constantly reducing prices - as consumers and businesses have come to expect.

Fujitsu-Siemens is considered one of the leading PC companies when it comes to cleaning up its manufacturing processes. The company, which was founded in 1999 after the merger of the IT businesses of German engineering giant Siemens and Japanese conglomerate Fujitsu, has always prided itself on its green credentials - a direct result of its German heritage.

Siemens-Nixdorf began a programme for recycling its customers old IT equipment in 1998 and, in 1994, was the first PC manufacturer to be awarded the Blue Angel environmental mark for one of its PCs.

Certain HP and Dell PC models have also been awarded the Blue Angel, which was one of the first marks to identify green products to consumers.

"As a leading manufacturer, we feel we have a duty to minimise our use of hazardous substances and show leadership around our consideration for the environment," said a Fujitsu-Siemens spokesperson who confirmed that it was one of the unsuccessful bidders for the Department of Environment contract.

"On the Continent, the environment is very high up the list of purchasing criteria, particularly in government. We accept price and other factors come into it but environmental considerations should be very high up the agenda, particularly for the government."

Traditionally, PCs have been manufactured using a wide range of substances that are now considered detrimental to health.

Laptop batteries contain lithium, cadmium and mercury, mercury is also used in switches, the plastic used for housings containing halogens and potentially dioxin-forming flame retardants, while motherboards use significant amounts of lead and lead solder.

All of these substances can be dangerous - particularly if they end up in a landfill, where they can potentially contaminate ground water, or if they are burned.

Lead, for example, is damaging to the central nervous system and kidneys, can cause brain damage in children and will poison plants and animals if it gets into water supplies.

In the US, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition estimates that 40 per cent of the lead that ends up in landfill comes from consumer electronics. It and other lobby groups also claim that 50-80 per cent of electronic waste recycled in the US is illegally shipped to Asia where it is broken down in conditions that are unsafe to workers and their environment.

Generally, European manufacturers have been more proactive than their US competitors in playing the green card. For example, the American Electronics Association - whose members include HP, Intel and Microsoft - lobbied strongly against the introduction of the WEEE and RoHS directives, claiming them to be anti-competitive.

Environmental campaigners believe that such lobbying was the reason that the final RoHS Directive included a number of exemptions, including the use of lead in solders for computer servers and storage systems.

And even Apple, a company that has used the slogan "Think Different" and is widely regarded as a model of corporate responsibility, has fallen foul of environmental campaigners. Last month, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs responded furiously when a shareholders meeting was picketed by protesters who feel the Californian company's recycling programme does not go nearly far enough.

On this side of the Atlantic, the demand for non-polluting electronics is much stronger. Fujitsu-Siemens has won considerable government business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as a direct result of its green commitments, but the spokesperson said that he believed such factors have less influence on Government purchasing in the Republic.