Greenpeace, probably the biggest known environmental group, just wrapped up a study they called: Your Guide to Green Electronics. Greenpeace looked at 14 electronic companies an rated them on the following two things:

1) How well they cleaned up their products by eliminating hazardous substances.
2) Did the company takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete?

It’s pretty much well known that electronic junk is toxic. I’m not a specialist in the environment, but as an electronics student I do know that there are toxic materials that are used, for example, in a computer. Thousands of computers being dumped would create a problem.

So here are the findings of the study from best company to worst company:

1) Nokia: It received a 7 (out of 10). It got huge points for not using PVC or BFRs (Brominated Flame Retardants) in their electronics. They didn’t do so well on recycling.

2) Dell: The popular computer company ranked 7 as well. It got top marks for recycling setting timelines to eliminate PVC and BFRs from their products. Unfortunately, they haven’t done so yet lost points there.

3) Hewlett Packard:It received a score of 5.7. It did well in recycling their products, but lost big points in not having a good timeline to eliminate toxic chemicals from their models and still using them.

4) Sony Ericsson: Got a score of 5.3. Sony Ericsson has removed toxic chemicals from some products, but doesn’t really have any program set up for recycling.

5) Samsung: It received a 5 out of 10. Samsung had good timelines set up to eliminate toxic chemicals, but still uses them in products and hasn’t set up any great recycling programs.

That rounded out the top five. Next came Sony (4.7); LGE (4.3); Panasonic (3.3); Toshiba (3); and Fujitsu (3).

Wondering where Apple is? It comes next in 11th place. It only received 2.7. And scored low on every criteria from GreenPeace.

Acer (2.3), Motorola (1.7), and Lenovo (1.3) rounded out the list.