Greenpeace continues to take unusual steps to push electronics companies to produce halogen-free products. On Tuesday July 28th, Greenpeace activists climbed onto the roof of one of the HP buildings in Palo Alto to protest that HP is not moving fast enough to remove BFR's and PVC from their products.
It seems to me that HP is taking their time to figure out whether or not the alternatives are both safe, reliable, and cost effective. It would make no sense to eliminate a hazardous material and replace it with something more hazardous. The main reason for Greenpeace's protest is that Apple has already successfully eliminated virtually all of their use of BFR's and PVC. However, the business model of HP and Apple are much different. HP has to be very cost consious and has a much broader product range than Apple. HP must be very careful in selecting alternatives that will work in all their products AND allow them to be competitive in the ultra-competitive computer market.