The five-day Computex Taipei had such a high profile this week that passersby in the bustling Xinyi District could hardly ignore the hoopla. The world's second-largest information technology trade fair, which ends today, set another record this year -- for scale -- with 1,312 exhibitors showcasing their wares at 2,907 booths.
There were some non-fans though.
Just outside the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall, a small group of protesters gathered on Wednesday morning to call for an end to the use of toxic substances in electronic devices.
Chanting the slogan "High-tech industry: go toxic free now," nine Greenpeace International activists clad in protective clothing brandished posters of children holding dumped electronic waste.
Greenpeace, a non-governmental organization with members in 40 countries, is calling on electronic companies worldwide to take responsibility for the entire lifespan of their products and start producing non-toxic gadgets. Its activists also staged protests at the CeBIT fair in Germany in March.
The toxic substances used in electronics, such as lead, are difficult to safely dispose of once the gadgets end up in the trashheap. They often end up at scrapyards or buried in landfill, where the toxins are released and seep into ground water and pollute the surrounding area.
China, India and other third-world countries have become the major recycling centers for the world's electronic goods, with some of the recycling even done by hand, Greenpeace said.
While there have been some green initiatives launched by governments -- the EU's Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) -- for example, Greenpeace said these do not go far enough.
RoHS, which takes effect July 1, bans the selling of electronic products containing six harmful substances, including cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium and lead.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants, are two of the priority organic pollutants not included on the RoHS list, Greenpeace said. It said vendors should go beyond the EU's directives and it has targeted the world's top mobile phone and computer players.
Greenpeace officials talked to Acer Inc, the world's fourth-largest computer maker, this week and the company promised to draw up a timeframe by the end of this quarter to phase out toxins.
The organization said it has had positive feedback from Hewlett-Packard Co, Nokia Corp, Samsung Electronics Co and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.
But others, such as Apple Computer, Dell, Lenovo Group (聯想), Motorola and Toshiba Corp, have not made any commitments, the group said.
A stroll through the booths in Exhibition Hall II -- where most of the major Taiwanese players were promoting their latest offerings -- one could see that some of them had already begun to stress that their products are "green."
Foxconn (
Inventec Appliances Corp (
However, a recent study by the Industrial Development Bureau found that among 972 listed companies which export to the EU, 164 were still unprepared for the RoHS rules.
RSS