Greenpeace paints 'hazardous products' on HP's roof

 

Let this be a lesson to electronics companies everywhere: If you don't heed demands to remove toxic materials from your products, Greenpeace is going to paint your roof.

Luckily, they'll use nontoxic finger paint. The negative advertising, visible to passing birds and helicopters, won't last longer than the time it takes to power-wash it away.

Unless someone snaps a picture. Or films it.

It took about 10 minutes for a handful of activists to complete the mission, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner Casey Harrell said. Dressed in haz-mat suits and armed with motorized paint-sprayers, they scaled the building with industrial-strength ladders and blasted the words "hazardous products" on the roof of Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto headquarters. And they didn't even get arrested.

The action followed demands by Greenpeace that Hewlett-Packard fulfill a promise to stop using hazardous materials such as PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants, which have been linked to thyroid hormone disruption in animals.

"Greenpeace will not stand idly by while companies that commit to environmentally responsible action backtrack on commitments," Harrell said in a statement Tuesday. "As the number one seller of PCs worldwide, HP has both the responsibility and the ability to make sure the company no longer deserves the moniker 'Hazardous Products.' "

HP said in a statement that the company was committed to eliminating  brominated flame retardants and PVC from its PC products by the end of 2011, according to wire reports.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo credit: Kim White/Greenpeace; used with permission

Comments

[Randy]

Bravo Green Peace. Last year I bought a new HP printer and had it for exactly one day. I had an immeditate physical reaction to it; it made me noticeably dizzy and almost naseous. I got rid of it immediately. I've had the same immediate reaction to other products containing the brominated flame retardants, including an LCD television and a high speed DVR. Europe banned those chemicals a few years ago, but we just let these companies continue to put them in our products.

[Jon]

I'm not surprised HP is getting flack for their lack of environmental responsibility. I just ordered an HP laptop (prior to Greenpeace's actions) and requested an LED display to avoid Mercury use. There's a sticker on the bottom warning about Mercury in the lamps, which LED displays would not have. It looks like HP not only renigged on their promises, but is greenwashing and tricking people into getting "LED" displays that aren't really LED. Either that or they put Mercury stickers on every laptop and their tech support doesn't know when Mercury is or isn't used.

[Green Fellow]

Well done Greenpeace! When corporations fail to live up to their commitments, we are glad you stand up for the truth. Since lawmakers in the US have failed to protect the poor children in China, Pakistan, and Ghana, concerned citizens must speak. If Apple can go green, why can't HP? The LA Times should include links (so I will) to recent 60 Minutes and PBS/Frontline articles on the hellish conditions for the poor children and women at the end of this supply chain.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html