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RE: does apple do business in europe?
By SiN on 4/5/2007 4:55:04 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe that's so, but its the most efficient thing to do to increase sales. Whats so bad about taking out the harmful materials anyway?

ROHS colmpliant factories would have been set up to meet EU demand. Its not just about your own shores anymore. I don't think that a US bound product would be manufactured under ROHS terms, it costs a little extra for the ROHS compliant meterials, and a corporate company would see that.

EU pollution laws are planned out on a timeline. They're not tough, they're forward thinking.

Did I mention I love the EU?

RE: does apple do business in europe?
By on 4/5/2007 1:15:50 PM , Rating: 2
Whats so bad about taking out the harmful materials anyway?

Most of the RoHS from an electronics device standpoint involves removing lead from solder. This is problematic because the solder then requires more tin content, which (1) needs higher heat to set and (2) has a tendency to grow tin "whiskers" as electrical pulses are sent across solder contacts, which will eventually touch each other and blow out your device(s).

The end result is more factory rejects at manufacturing, and more failures for the consumer during regular use. All this means more trash, which is never good for the environment, even if each piece is marginally "safer" once you start a cycle of throwing away dead elecronics every couple years or so.

Small devices like cell phones probably won't matter since they're replaced regularly anyway. But I hate to imagine what will happen with something like RoHS big screen HDTV's or things like backbone routers (or telephone switches) which cost more than my house and impact large numbers of people when they fail.


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