packaging posts

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Other Events, MacBook

Apple products announced today: It's easier being green

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on Oct 14th, 2008

Apple made a concerted effort today to highlight the reduced impact its new products have on the environment.

This effort all started with Steve Jobs' open letter in 2007, A Greener Apple, announcing a long-term plan to "protect the environment and make our business more sustainable." The letter was released partly in response to a Greenpeace campaign, encouraging Apple to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals in its products and improve its recycling programs.

Today, the star of the show was Apple's new "unibody," a single, complex chassis for new MacBook and MacBook Pro units fabricated from a single brick of aluminum. In a video posted on its website, Apple noted that as a result of the new fabrication process, fewer parts in the laptop means a reduction in weight, size, and the amount of other material necessary to hold the device together.

Continue reading “Apple products announced today: It's easier being green”

Tags: alumninum, carbon, environment, footprint, green, packaging, recycling, unibody

Filed under: iPhone

iPhone 3G to be shipped in eco-friendly packaging: spuds

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on Jun 30th, 2008

The new iPhone 3G will ship in a paper tray made that has a carbon footprint a tenth the size of a plastic tray, according to its manufacturer.

The paper tray, manufactured by Dutch firm PaperFoam, is made from potato or tapioca starch.

According to Dutch blog Bright, PaperFoam CEO Hans Arentsen said that Apple ordered "millions of PaperFoam packages" for the new iPhone. PaperFoam also makes carton components for Motorola.

The PaperFoam tray will be inside a coated cardboard box, both of which are fully recyclable. Apple committed to reducing its environmental impact in an open letter from Steve Jobs released in May 2007.

[Via The Register.]

Tags: green, iphone, packaging

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Apple

How green is Apple?

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Oct 15th, 2007

Is Apple a "green" company? Today is Blog Action Day, where 15,000 blogs are publishing posts about the environment. I have always thought of Apple having an eye towards the environment, but perhaps I think this is because I remember Apple eschewing extra paper on their boxes way back in the early days. You see, to get optimal 4-color print on a shipping box you have to wrap that box in an additional layer of glossy paper. For a while, Apple was content to ship the monochrome brown box with black ink, thus saving trees and ink. The original Mac boxes were white, but didn't use the glossy stuff.

A year ago you may remember Apple being taken to task regarding their recycling efforts. In fact, Apple has been taken to task on their computer take back program, their packaging and now the scary hazardous chemicals in the iPhone. Shock, horror! Yes, it is obvious Apple is determined to coat the Earth in a fine sheen of clear plastic, aluminum and bromiated compounds. Evil I tells ya, evil.

In their defense, Al Gore is on the board. OK, they have more than just Al. Steve Jobs issued a statement just a few months ago for a greener Apple. Naturally, there are still plenty of skeptics, but the site Green My Apple provides constructive criticism and a fairly healthy outlook for the future. Apple appears to have listened! Of course, they could just hire the Professor and make iPhones from coconuts, right? Given the fact that consumer electronics is about as un-green an industry as you can get, it'll be a very long road indeed before everyone is happy. Then again, as we know too well, there's no way to make everyone happy. The hope is that Apple will continue to innovate with "green" in mind. Not the back of the mind, but right up there in front where it'll do the most good.

Tags: Al-Gore, Blog-action-day, chemicals, green, greendaily, packaging, recycling, Steve-Jobs, waste

Filed under: Humor, iPod Family, Odds and ends

Microsoft: We created the iPod packaging parody

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Mar 15th, 2006

Well, here's one we didn't see coming. You may remember the video that was floating around a couple of weeks ago that poked fun at Microsoft by illustrating what the iPod's packaging might look like if Redmond were in charge. Well, according to this article at the iPod Observer, the video was created at Microsoft itself.

According to Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla, the video was "...an internal-only video clip commissioned by our packaging [team] to humorously highlight the challenges we have faced RE: packaging and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding."

Wow, so the folks at MS can make a joke, and a good one at that. I'm impressed.

Tags: ipod, microsoft, packaging, parody

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