Are Electronics Manufacturing Companies Ignoring Safety Rules?
I am really sure we all feel very happy when you move to your new home and as such the family has also paid for new electronic gadgets ranging from games, televisions, sound system, fridges etc to be installed in your new home.
Finally, when move to your new home and then your parents go into the TV room and there stand a new Plasma LCD TV with sound speakers installed near a fire heating place. The first question, your parents will ask, is this Plasma TV safe? Is the product made from good products and chemicals?
In a Greenpeace report which targeted electronics manufacturing companies that use brominated flame retardants (BFRs).
Preventing fires in electronics is particularly very important as most of these electronics gadgets often contain heat sources and good amounts of very high flammable plastics and as such placing a plasma TV. Near fire place in your room is very dangerous.
We have also heard of situations where computer batteries and game consoles had burst into flames. It is therefore vital that consumers of electronics products especially plasma which most of us want get also comes with great danger with not used well.
Just as computer first came, they were very expense and as such companies made lots of money through the sale of computers without considering the safety of the general public. The same can be said of Plasma TVs, Video and Computer Games and Iphones.
The Greenpeace decided to conduct investigations, bringing in game manufacturers like Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo and come out with a final report.
The lack of research brought the credibility of the report into question concerning the use of chemicals during manufacturing.
The ethical judgment of Greenpeace was put into question since their research was made in a lazy manner. The evaluation report didn’t only encourage the use of replacements for some chemicals with known health and safety problems.
Unfortunately, Greenpeace didn’t provide any indication of whether these replacement chemicals are also currently available, or whether they did pass the precautionary principle standard test.
Much as there so many importations of goods from China, the time has come for the United States from toys to food, the safety concern of the entire public and consumers should be the main concern of the government. Electronics gadgets that are found to defective should quickly be sent to the manufacturer for proper disposal.
Also the Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs) commonly used in electronic devices should be made sure that it is safe and reliable to use with respect to both the environment and more importantly to human health.
Even though most manufacturers are there to make profit gain in this capital economy, their primary aim should center on the safety of the public and the consumer.
Any manufacturing company found doing contrary should be made to pay a heavy fine once all the rules and regulations have been applied.
Posted By: Benjamin Yaw Atsem
Sources:
Gamet, Jeff
“Chemical Group Critical of Greenpeace iPhone Report”
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
<http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/33442>
Timmer, John
“Greenpeace report bashing Nintendo and Apple undermined by flawed research”
Published: November 28, 2007 - 08:30AM CT
<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071128-greenpeaces-green-electronics-guide-undermined-by-minimal-research-effort.html>
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hey Benjamin,
This is Smitty from Group 2, you are absolutely correct when you say that companies should seriously considered consumer safety when making their electronic product. But then how would these companies replaces the products that have already been made? Yes they have to replace them at no cost the consumer but would that raise the price for future consumer?
What needs to happen here is that OSHA and the government needs to put strict standards in place and force manufactures to produced products with non toxic chemicals. From reading briefly the report, Greenpeace is more concerned about environment safety then human safety. It is true that if chemicals are environmentally safe then they are safe for consumers but it is not the case for all chemicals. Some simple cleaning agents are hazardous to humans but do not harm the environment.
Greenpeace needs to place in more stricter standards to not only considered environment but also consumer safety, for example, fire hazards, electrical hazards, etc.
The safety of the consumer should be the first preoccupation when designing new items. Moral standards require not causing any kind of harm to others. However, this article doesn't really specify the threat imposed by electronics gadgets. Besides it doesn't give any statistical data of what percent of these items had caused harm before. There no technological product that is hundred percent safe, even drugs we consume to promote our health are not safe. The guidance for the designer is the ethical standards of hi profession. As long as he respects them his act is morally acceptable. From this point if something doesn't work well, these standards and rules should be reviewed. According to futilitarians, an act is moral if it provides happiness to more people. So I think, from a common morality, that when using the actual techniques, there should be a serious willingness to improve them in order to provide more people with more happiness
Post a Comment