Greenpeace expects several major CE companies soon to publicly repudiate CEA’s lawsuit to block New York City’s e- waste law, the green group’s leading CE campaigner told a CES news conference Thursday where Greenpeace released its 14th Guide to Greener Electronics. “Stay tuned” for the names of CEA members that will break ranks with the trade group, said Greenpeace’s Casey Harrell, who wouldn’t identify the companies. “Some brands are telling us one thing and potentially doing another, explicitly with respect” to supporting the e-waste suit, Harrell told us.
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
LAS VEGAS -- ESPN 3D “will start and launch at 720p,” but will “gravitate” toward 1080p/60 “as a function of time,” Chuck Pagano, executive vice president, technology, told us Wednesday on the eve of CES. The channel debuts June 11 with live coverage of the World Cup match between Mexico and South Africa (CED Jan 6 p1). “We're a 720 house,” Pagano said. “We have systems that can support 720. This is simpler. My goal is to definitely get it to 1080/60. What time frame? I couldn’t tell you right now.”
The Electronics Takeback Coalition scoffed at CEA’s suggestions that it’s up to green groups to monitor CEA’s online listings of recyclers to weed out those that improperly export e-waste to developing countries. It’s as if CEA published a disclaimer that it takes “no responsibility for the integrity of the information and companies” it promotes on its website, said Barbara Kyle, the coalition’s executive director. CEA’s list of green recyclers, through MyGreenElectronics.org, is promoted “by this large, well-funded association representing the largest names in the consumer electronics industry, so people think it’s a credible resource for finding a recycler,” she said. “CEA has a responsibility for vetting these companies before they promote them, to figure out if they are really recyclers, or if they are just fake recyclers who export. Clearly, what they are saying here is, they don’t really care what these companies are doing.” CEA executives, many in transit to Las Vegas, could not be reached for comment. In a sharp response, Parker Brugge, CEA’s vice president for environmental affairs and industry sustainability, said in an e-mail Tuesday he’s puzzled about why the coalition “thinks we suggested it’s up to green groups to monitor the listings.” He went on, “What I said was that, if they know of companies that are improperly recycling, please let us know. I want to reiterate that what we need is a national electronics law which includes standards for recyclers.” CEA “promotes recycling, not recyclers,” Brugge said. Through its program, CEA educates consumers about the need to recycle their electronics products at the end of life and connects them with the resources and information they need to recycle safely and appropriately, he said.
Questions abounded Tuesday about ESPN’s announcement that it will launch a dedicated 3D network June 11 with the telecast of the first 2010 World Cup soccer match, between Mexico and South Africa. The announcement, timed to coincide with an expected broad showing of 3D-capable flat-panel TVs and Blu-ray players at this week’s CES, said ESPN 3D will showcase at least 85 live sporting events in its first year.
It was just through an “oversight” that CEA, in a Dec. 23 consumer advisory, failed to mention the Basel Action Network’s e-Stewards program among a list of resources the public can use to properly dispose of old electronics, Parker Brugge, CEA vice president of environmental affairs and industry sustainability, told us in an e-mail. CEA continues to list BAN’s activities elsewhere on the environmental portions of its website, Brugge said.
New York City wants the court to strike from the record evidence that the city’s sanitation workers’ union introduced in an amicus brief backing CE makers’ request for a preliminary injunction to block the city’s e-waste program from taking effect. The union, in its Dec. 11 brief filed at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, argued that the city’s e-waste law “did not remove residential collection of covered electronic waste from the purview” of the Department of Sanitation, and that such collections should remain the “exclusive province” of sanitation workers.
Six consumer products trade groups from outside the CE industry support the CEA and ITI Council motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the New York City e-waste program from taking effect, they said in an amicus brief filed Monday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
A new “Blu-ray 3D” logo likely will adorn many banners and product prototypes at next month’s CES, now that the Blu- ray Disc Association has finished and released its 3-D specification. Blu-ray 3D products are expected to reach consumers sometime in 2010, the BDA said in a predawn announcement Thursday.
Best Buy shares fell more than 8 percent Tuesday despite the chain’s disclosure earlier in the day that its earnings per share beat expectations for Q3 ended Nov. 28. Analysts said investors were jittery because Best Buy’s gross profit rate fell 30 basis points in the U.S. and 70 basis points internationally, and that the chain now expects its fourth- quarter domestic gross margin rate to fall more than its previous estimates.
CE makers’ request for a preliminary injunction to block New York City’s e-waste law from taking effect got a significant boost Friday when the union for the city’s 6,200 sanitation workers filed a supporting amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.