Greenpeace International criticized several PC makers for reneging on commitments to reduce toxic substances used in fabricating their hardware.

Among the companies that have been blacklisted in Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics (a guide that ranks PC manufacturers on their environmental and recycling practices as well as power consumption and chemical content) are Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo who failed to stick to commitments to eliminate hazardous substances like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants or BFRs from their products.

Greenpeace slammed HP for the procrastination of an earlier commitment to phase out the contaminants from its products from 2009 to 2010. Lenovo too has delayed a similar commitment to the end of 2010. Greenpeace also chastened Dell for completely dropping a timeline to eliminate PVC plastic and BFRs from its products, which was earlier set at the end of 2009.

Greenpeace however praised manufacturers like Acer, Toshiba and Apple for their green manufacturing practices. Apple was given special praise for introducing a new line of PCs that are virtually free of certain hazardous substances like PVC plastic and BFRs. But Greenpeace’s contention with Apple revolved around their lack of action in removing chemicals from certain products like arsenic from display glass.

Acer is sticking to its commitment to completely phase out PVC and BFRs in its products towards the end of this year. Greenpeace claimed that Toshiba too did well in containing chemicals and hazardous substances in some of its products including three laptop models.

Dell is desperately trying to reduce usage of harmful substances in its products and is already delivering some products that are PVC and BVR-free.

"However, as there are no viable alternatives for many of the components used in our products that include these chemicals, we've adjusted our timetable for eliminating them accordingly," Micelle Mosmeyer, a spokesperson at Dell, said.

Greenpeace admitted that Dell was stepping up its efforts on this regard with the launch of their ‘green’ G-series monitors.

Apart from computers, the study ranked a wide range of electronics in addition to PCs, including mobile phones and televisions. In phones, Nokia rated highest, followed by Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG electronics and Toshiba.