Greenpeace, the environmental activist organization, has released a new study on hazardous chemicals and substances in video game consoles, calling on manufacturers to take additional voluntary actions to reduce hazardous substances found in these systems.
The report, entitled Playing Dirty, analyzed electronic components found in Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s Playstation PS3, and Nintendo’s Wii game system. The 23 page report concludes that materials found in the three systems appear to comply with the provisions of the European Union’s RoHS Directive.
“However,” the report also notes, “all consoles still contain a number of hazardous chemicals and materials, including PVC and BFRs (brominated flame retardants), which give rise to concerns for both environmental contamination and human exposure during manufacture, use and disposal of such products.”
As we’ve previously reported (see Conformity, January 2008) Greenpeace released a separate report last year ranking manufacturers of PCs, mobile phones and other electronic devices on their efforts to eliminate harmful chemicals from their products, and to recycle their products once discarded by consumers. Sony was ranked 6th out of 14 separate manufacturers who were evaluated. Neither Microsoft nor Nintendo were evaluated in that study.
Our readers can view the complete text of the most recent Greenpeace study at this link.
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