some of the problems i had trying to find out the environmental impact of consumer electronics are 1) different guides exist that rely on different standards 2) the companies make misleading declarations and seem to be actively removing information about their processes and 3) few alternatives exist – all electronics are made of the same chips, board and casings.
greenpeace publishes a yearly guide to greener electronics, the epa has the epeat searchable product registry, british ethiscore ranks all kinds of products on a broader ethical scale, and litegreen is an on-line shopping portal that filters out bad companies.
according to one mit study, this what it takes to make a tiny 2-gram microchip:
