Bangalore: San Francisco officials plan to ban Apple devices, following the declaration by the company to withdraw an array of 39 of its products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Green Hardware Certification. The city, which is very well known for its environmental concerns, may prohibit government agencies and municipal officials from buying new Apple computers.

San Francisco’s chief information officer Jon Walton told the BBC that the city has a long tradition of following the policy of purchasing the EPEAT-certified IT devices. Apple may have dropped following the EPEAT standards anticipating its new hardware designs that would not satisfy the criteria laid for the registry to EPEAT. EPEAT CEO Robert Frisbee said that Apple itself has confirmed their designs to be no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements. 

The EPEAT list identifies, certifies and rewards those companies and products that possess certain environment-friendly traits, one among which is the ability to be recycled. Many of Apple’s devices are hostile to recycling, such as MacBook Pro with retina display which is almost impossible to disassemble.

Meanwhile, according to Apple’s spokesperson, the company takes a comprehensive approach to measuring the environmental impact the products have and all the products meet the energy efficiency standards put up by the U. S. government.

But the government official says that Apple comes in front in other environmental issues also that are not considers by EPEAT, such as the emission of toxic materials.

In the year 2010, San Francisco has spent over $ 45, 000 on Apple products. Though the figure is negligible when compared to the total $ 65 billion purchase Apple has every year, the ban can cast a significant mark on the sales, especially if the other municipalities and institutions follow the trend. Since EPEAT has close ties with the U. S. government more and more official bodies would be forced to stop the purchase of Apple devices.

Apple’s decision would also resonate further as a number of environment-conscious schools and corporations have decided to purchase only EPEAT-friendly electronic devices.

What is EPEAT? Read on