'Green' Controversy Strikes Dell

[OhioChick]

Jul 08, 2009 1731 hrs IST

Dell and environment watchdog - Greenpeace, have once again locked horns over former's environment policy. This time it is regarding Dell' recycling service and their promise to phase out hazardous chemicals like PVC/BFR from their components.

Dell in May had announced a new environment policy that among other things offered a free recycling policy for its home users. To see how well the service worked, we tried to get information from the Dell India site. With some effort, we were able to find and fill up the required form.

After submitting the form, we got a call from Cimelia Resource Recovery, a Singapore-based firm that is Dell's recycler in a number of Asian countries. They assured that the products would be collected from the given address without any charge.

Surprisingly, even talking to Dell's customer care executives (via the helpline number available on the website) proved futile as they had no information on Dell's recycling service. In fact, we were once even told that Dell had no such service!

When quizzed about this difficulty in using the service, Dell acknowledged that information on recycling, though present on the website, is not easily found. A company spokesperson said they would improve this. However, this still does not answer why their customer care executives are ignorant of the recycling service.

International environment watchdog - Greenpeace, also had similar problems when they tried to test the recycling service some time back. Speaking exclusively to CXOtoday, Abhishek Pratap, head campaigner (toxicity) for Greenpeace India said, "If a consumer wants to avail of their free recycling service they have to go to the global site which will then direct them to fill up a form. This does not make any sense, since a person from India will obviously go to the Dell India site first."

Dell offers two kinds of recovery services - an asset recovery service for corporate users that involves a shipping cost ($28/40 pounds box) and a free recycling service for home users. The problem, according to Greenpeace, is that customers may get confused about which is the right service for them as information is not easily available at either the India website or the global site. And if a customer feels he is going to be charged, then he or she might not feel the need to use this service.

"On submitting the recycling form, I got a call from their asset management team from the US, who informed that I would have to pay $28 for packaging and shipping my computer, and this after mentioning that I just wanted to send back a single computer," Pratap informed.

A copy of the mails exchanged between Pratap and the Dell asset management representative are available with us. In the mails, the company representative states that he has 'no contact' in India. "This proves that the company has no logistical support in India when it comes to taking back their products," said Pratap. Greenpeace wants Dell to provide information on their recycling service to customers in a clear and easily accessible manner. They also want Dell to pay closer attention to their recovery services instead of just outsourcing it to third-party contractors.

Another issue is that of phasing out hazardous chemicals from components. Greenpeace is not very happy with the progress made by companies like Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

Dell, however, maintained that they were working to remove hazardous components like PVC/BFR. "Dell remains committed to proactively eliminating environmentally sensitive substances from our products, and we are working closely with our suppliers to do so. We already deliver some BFR/PVC-reduced products today. However, as there are no viable alternatives for many of the components used in our products that include these chemicals, we have adjusted our timetable for eliminating them accordingly," said the spokesperson in response to our mail.

Pratap, however, claims this is not the true reason. "When companies like Acer, Apple, Wipro, etc. are close to being PVC/BFR free by 2009-end, with Apple already having phased out these chemicals, then why not others?" he questioned. According to him, suppliers are ready to provide PVC-free components, but companies like Dell, HP, and Lenovo are not keen due to the cost factor. "We want them (Dell, HP, and Lenovo) to give us a deadline for phasing out PVC/BFR and then stick to it," said Pratap.

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Green_Controversy_Strikes_Dell/551-104146-547.html