Greenpeace slams Nintendo,praises Nokia

It targets elimination of two toxic chemicals in particular — polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BRFs) — because they are long-lasting in the environment and can accumulate in human bodies.

Greenpeace researcher Iza Kruszewska said highly toxic dioxins were released by collectors of electronics trash burning PVC cables to recover the copper inside or cooking circuit boards in acid to recover gold.

Nintendo,maker of the Wii console,took bottom place,announced Kruszewska. She added that the gaming giant was “the only company that has never engaged in dialogue with Greenpeace” among the big industry players.

Nintendo declined to comment directly but said that each environmental organisation “asks different questions,which tend to be narrow in focus rather than take into account the bigger picture of wider corporate activity”.

“We are committed to reporting on our CSR (corporate social responsibility) performance in an open way that avoids misreporting,” the Kyoto-based company said in a statement,urging consumers to visit its website for details.

Toshiba,which makes electronic goods as well as nuclear power plants,dropped from third in December to 14th in the latest ranking.

Toshiba earned penalty points “for breaking its promises that all its consumer electronics products should have been free of PVC and BFRs by April 1 this year”,said Kruszewska.

“They are hazardous in their production but even more so in the end-of-life (stage),when products containing these substances are recycled in substandard conditions like we see in China,India,” she said.

Officials at Toshiba were not immediately available for comment.

Nokia took the top spot and Sony Ericsson came second. Philips was in third,followed by Motorola in fourth and Apple on fifth.

Greenpeace imposed penalty points on Samsung,Dell,Lenovo,LG Electronics and Toshiba for backtracking on promises.