Apple BANS 2 chemicals from iPhone, iPad final assembly line

Now, if we could only...

...get Apple lawyers to stop using oxygen.

Stop using hazardous chemicals in the final production

Where they were not using them before.

Will continue to use them where they are using them.

In other news Apple has also stopped using Broccoli in the production of it's iThings.

Don't other computer companies already do this?

I thought all computers companies except Apple already insisted that where they get their machines made, the manufacturers did not use any hazardous chemicals and endanger the workforce in any way.

Maybe I have just missed the Reg stories regarding Lenovo, Asus, Samsung, Dell etc and how they make a big thing about how great they are when it comes to manufacturing.

Cynical - moi?...

different ways of looking at things

Benzene is found in factories. Is this:

a) Apple's suppliers unable to contain dangerous chemicals?

or

b) Apple's suppliers manage use of dangerous chemicals to within tolerances?

(now as to whether the tolerance is just the legal limit, or a legal limit based on toxicology data, I leave to others. Certainly no use must be better than controlled use. I seem to recall working with n-hexane in the past but damned if I can remember why? perhaps that's another of it's effects....)

HSE has a leaflet on the nasty bugger http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg329.pdf if you find that you work with it.

And are "500,000" really exposed (in measureable amounts) to benzene etc, or is that the sum total of workers at the suppliers, some of whom may be "handling" the allegedly contaminated components/sub assemblies?

What about the Semiconductor industry?

There are lots of very bad chemicals used in the manufacture of the chips.

ROHM?

Isn't this already covered under removal of hazardous materials requirements?

No first world country allows those chemicals (certainly Benzene) in an electronic manufacturing environment anyway, why does China? There are numerous less hazardous ways of cleaning electronics.

question is...

What were the actual concentrations found?

From the article it seems to me that most of the stuff they found is trace leftover degreaser, possibly due to production pressure and insufficient airing times.

This would be measureable, but hardly noticeable, especially with n-hexane, which gets you stoned when you hit the (EU) legal limit of 25 ppm (prolongued-exposure toxicity (associated with the nervous disorders) for n-hexane is lowest-value 500 ppm, 20 times over that limit..) I can't imagine those facories working with peeps working in fumes thick enough to have a measureable physical effect. There'd be a recall or two each week if you let your cheap labour get stoned on the job, and such...

Benzene itself is not as nasty as people will have it, actually. The problem is mostly with its metabolites in the human body ( which also occur naturally) which are rather nasty. Flooding your system with that stuff through benzene inhalation is definitely a bad idea, although you really still need to inhale quite a bit of the stuff to have serious effects. The MAC value for benzene is very low (<1 ppm), but you hit that value with a bit of splash of gasoline, or for that matter a nice walk in a pinewood.

Both substances can be nasty long-term if misused/applied, but other than the bruhaha about "Dangerous Suffz" from environmentalists they rate pretty low on the scale of "Stuff you don't want to be around in/with". Especially as far as benzene is concerned there's even chance the air in the factory is cleaner than outside, given the rather notorious smog problem.

I'm not one to jump to the defense of megacorps/factories, but this one comes across as a kneejerk reaction, without properly investigating the cause.

Texas? California?

Since when does Apple make iPhones and iPads there? They make Mac Pros in Texas now, but what are they making in California? Anyone know??

I'm not aware of them making anything in Cork, Ireland anymore either.

They employ several thousand people there but it's all basically multi-lingual EU technical support and their European operations HQ.

They've manufacturing and automation engineers in Cork who support the plants in the Far East though.

Also I'm 100% sure that exposing workers to benzene in Ireland, California and Texas is illegal.

That's why all electronics are made in China and elsewhere these days, big corporations (not necessarily Apple but absolutely everything) just rolled back decades of environmental and safety at work legislation by simply moving somewhere that doesn't really have any.

In China they 'splash it all over', many factories use it to wipe down the product before boxing.

Handy tip.. Do not breath in when unboxing.

Another handy tip for 'auditors', most just check invoices and stock rooms for banned substances, an old trick in China is simply to re-label the deliveries, many Chemical delivery companies in China have this service………

I'd be more worried about the crap that goes into the cables, headphone or otherwise.

Handy tip 2: Take an old CD case cover, leave a Chinese made cable resting over it for a week or so….. inspect the now melted cover.. and that's magic…..

Thats interesting

Wonder what the noxious agent in PVC is?

Also there are other chemicals present in new wiring which may indeed be toxic, used to work with wire a lot and the "new wire smell" from a reel of this stuff fresh from the factory made me light headed.

Possibly formaldehyde, maybe other nasties such as vinyl residues.