Sustainable Suburbs

I like Apple products, a lot. I write this blog on one. I carry my favorite music with me every day on one. I’ve used one at most places I’ve worked. There are only coincidental reasons that I don’t talk and text on one, or do whatever one does on an iPad. They’re all pretty amazing products. And just about everyone I know who’s used one, and then tried to perform the same tasks on a competing product, prefers a Mac.

So when I heard a while back about an explosion at a factory in China that produces parts for the iPad, I was somewhat surprised. Doesn’t somebody in Cupertino just wave a magic wand and these great products appear?

Add to that the subsequent allegations that workers at a Foxconn factory (an Apple supplier) routinely work under terrible conditions, and one’s opinion of Apple, um, sours a bit. (Not to mention the fact that the company is now picking on beleaguered Kodak. This news is a reality check on the importance of knowing where the stuff that we buy comes from.

Does this make me want to stop consuming Apple products altogether? A bit, but ultimately no. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe (feel free to debate). But I also think it would be naïve to believe that other companies are much different.

We should not be OK with this kind of status quo, of course. While it’s good that Apple has taken heed of the recent bad press and hired an outside firm to do inspections at its factories, it’s easy to feel that our options as consumers are limited. We can vote with our dollars by choosing more sustainably-minded companies. But when those options aren’t viable, you’re simply choosing the lesser of all offenders. That’s not much of a choice.

Instead, it seems the best thing to do is to speak up.