How green is the New iPad - part 3: Packaging

Last Thursday we started a 7-part series in which we explore the carbon footprint and environmental impacts of the new iPad, compare it to those of the iPad 2 and try to figure out if Apple has made any progress from environmental perspective with its new iPad and what's the new breakeven point between books and ebooks on the iPad.

Every day we're looking into another part of the carbon footprint of the new iPad. We already covered production and energy efficiency. Today we're looking at packaging.

Packaging:

Here is the information on the packaging of the new iPad (source: Apple's report):

The packaging for iPad is highly recyclable. It uses corrugated cardboard made from a minimum of 28 percent post-consumer recycled content and molded fiber made entirely from recycled content. In addition, its packaging is extremely material efficient, allowing up to 52 percent more units to be transported in an airline shipping container compared with the original iPad. The following table details the materials used in iPad packaging.

Packaging Breakdown for iPad (U.S. Configurations, in grams)

Material	Retail box	Retail and shipping box
Paper (corrugate, molder fiber)	212	445
High impact polystyrene	70	70
Other plastics	9	9

Here is the information on the packaging of the iPad 2 (source: Apple's report - revised version):

The packaging for iPad 2 is highly recyclable. It uses corrugated cardboard made from a minimum of 28 percent post-consumer recycled content and molded fiber made entirely from recycled content. In addition, its packaging is extremely material efficient, allowing up to 52 percent more units to be transported in an airline shipping container compared with the original iPad. The following table details the materials used in iPad 2 packaging.

Packaging Breakdown for iPad (U.S. Configurations, in grams)

Material	Retail box	Retail and shipping box
Paper (corrugate, molder fiber)	207	440
High impact polystyrene	68	68
Other plastics	9	9

Here's a comparison of the data presented in these tables, showing the change in %:

Material	Retail box	Retail and shipping box
Paper (corrugate, molder fiber)	2.4%	1.1%
High impact polystyrene	2.9%	2.9%
Other plastics	0.0%	0.0%

Our take: Nothing has really changed in the packaging. Apple basically provided the same specifications on packaging it provided for the iPad 2. In terms of weight the packaging of the new iPad actually uses more materials and weights more, which also means it has a larger carbon footprint.

Bottom line: Apple has failed to make any improvements whatsoever in the packaging of the new iPad. If anything, it only made it heavier.

Next part on our series: Restricted substances.

Here are the parts of the series that were released so far:

Part 1 - production

Part 2 - energy efficiency

More resources on how green is the iPad can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ipad.asp

More resources on the ebooks vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!