Study Reveals Apple's iPhone 4S and 5 Among Most Environmentally Friendly Phones

[Akshay Masand]

The folks over at iFixit and HealthyStuff recently teamed up to analyze the level of toxic chemicals found in 36 mobile phones. Their results reveal the rather obvious - that modern handsets contain fewer toxic chemicals than their predecessors and not surprisingly Apple’s iPhone 4S and new iPhone 5 are among the least toxic.

An X-ray fluorescence spectrometric analysis was performed by researchers on 36 devices, with each device being assigned a rating on a scale of 0 to 5 (with lower being better). The products were ranked by chemical components and “overall” with the process consisting of chemical analysis testing for 12 common hazardous chemicals (including bromine, mercury, and lead). The component testing consisted of a breakdown by case, screen, solder, circuit board, and other vital parts of the device with a final overall assessment of each device.

Apple’s older iPhone 2G came in with the worst score, maxing out the ratings scale at 5.0, while the newer iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 handsets were found to be of “low concern,” at 2.69 and 2.75 respectively. Other handsets that were deemed to be environmentally responsible were the LG Remarq, Motorola Citrus, and Samsung’s Captivate and Evergreen. Overall, Motorola’s Citrus was deemed to contain the least toxic chemicals with a score of 2.56.

Although many major cellphone manufacturers continue to make an effort to be more environmentally friendly, the report said that they shouldn’t “rest on their laurels as many toxics remain” in discarded handsets. The report continued by stating that “there is a trend of less toxics overtime, it looks like – especially for Apple. That’s good, but it’s not good enough.”

The ratings for Apple’s recently released iPhone 5 can be found below for those of you who are interested:



Source: iFixit via AppleInsider

[Colby21]

Ha yeah, but there was an article a couple months back that said the iPhone is among the worst when it comes to radiation.

[*T*]

Wonderful

[Amraam]

As guess Foxconn workers don't count towards the environment.

[bmwraw8482]

Ha yeah, but there was an article a couple months back that said the iPhone is among the worst when it comes to radiation.

Well u shield radiation with lead so u can't have both! 😁