Apple Fined $43,200 For Air Quality Violation

Pete Mortensen ()

Green Apple
Activists have been working for a few years now to try to convince Mac fans that we should be extremely upset about Apple’s environmental record. Most people, however, haven’t been that bothered. The cause actually has real proof now, however, as Apple has been ordered to pay a $43,200 fine to the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District for a violation a year ago, reported the Sacramento Business Journal.
The fine is a pittance, obviously, and I don’t think this is the kind of issue Greenpeace had in mind when they set up Green My Apple (the source of our delightful image)…

The violation occurred over several days as Apple operated its emergency standby generator for a purpose other than maintenance or emergency power. Apple was notified that it violated its permit requirements April 21, 2006.

I imagine they want Apple to stop using toxic metals in its products or something, right? Yeah, this doesn’t even make a dent.

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About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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  • C Rolls

    43k isn’t even a drop in the bucket — that’s probably less than the salary of an employee.

  • Optical

    Emergency generators are these massive diesel power generators that a lot of companies buy in the event of a power outage, and they do need to be started up and ran once every 3 months to keep them from going foul (included in that running for maintenance part mentioned above I’d imagine), I can’t imagine why they would need to run a generator for no reason though… weird.

  • George

    It is just a little SMAQM extortion which they use as additional revenue. Apple should tell the Sac Enviro_Nazis something unking and challenge them in court. Of course, it is cheaper to just pay the phoney greenies their blood money.

  • http://technology-question.blogspot.com Appleinfoexpert

    Apple does not use anything toxic in there Mac and all there products. Apple is really envirmentel compared to other companies.