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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

I feel like there's at least one PR own-goal here. Consider:

    > > Do Apple products contain lead?
    > Apple is in compliance with the European
    > Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) 
    > Directive, which restricts the use of lead and
    > other substances. As a result of our precautionary
    > approach to substances, Apple phased out lead in
    > plastic parts, paint, and packaging material long
    > before lead’s use was restricted

So that's pretty clearly a "Yes", covered up to look like a "No", and if they're employing weasel words there, where it looks like they're probably doing a good job, who knows what actual bad things they're covering up?

Couldn't they have led that paragraph with "Yes, trace amounts", before explaining their reduction program? By not doing so they've made all their answers seem less trust worthy.

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You vastly overestimate how well most people can assess potentially harmful materials.

Apple answers this with "Yes, trace amounts", and the next buzzfeed article will scream "Apple admits that its product contains lead! What else does it have?" And it will go downhill from there...

I don't accept this as valid, but even if I did there are still more honest ways to spin this than to bury the lede completely.

Example of the more honest way? Everything in what you posted is honest, and that is a well accepted standard for keeping low-to-no lead levels.

I think the next question after that about "BFR‑free and PVC‑free" was a transparent, but still 'PR-y' but non-weasel-word way of saying 'yes they contain tiny amounts of dangerous materials'.

We understands your concerns about heavy metals and have nearly eliminated lead from our products. <insert the rest of their comments>

Buzzfeed should not dictate how companies write their press releases.

The answer to "Does X contain lead?" is nearly always going to be "yes." It's hard to get rid of all the lead atoms out of the ~10^25 going into a computer, no matter how hard you try. Even bottled water is going to contain some lead, although probably far less than a computer.

OTOH, since Apple gets to pick the question, they could have gone with "How much lead do Apple products contain?" or "Do Apple products contain harmful amounts of lead?" for which the existing answer might be more satisfactory.

Personally, I think that answer is more useful or actionable than attempting to answer in absolute terms. How much lead does "trace amounts" actually amount to? Is it realistic to expect manufacturing processes to be completely lead free to arbitrary significant figures?

This response quotes a documented standard that they are in compliance with, so it instead becomes a matter of evaluating whether the standard is sufficiently safe or not.

I think answering a yes/no question with anything other than a yes/no answer (and then as much mitigation or explanation as you want to follow) gives an appearance of something to hide.

Yes, politicians do it all the time. But does Apple really want to be seen as equivalently trustworthy with politicians? I think not.

The issue is not whether or not Apple products contain lead, it's that they're employing misleading tactics on a page meant to show how open and "pure" they are

What is "pure"? Is one atom of lead too much? If so why? Is it realistic to expect perfection? At what cost? In comparison to what?

Stating Apple is employing misleading tactics without stating what isn't misleading is disingenuous at best.

Engineering isn't perfect, in fact the real world is anything but perfect. Do you consider chocolate with trace amounts of faeces impure? Even if it is measured in the parts per million?

Comparing an engineering reality with political maneuvering is specious at best. Willfully misleading at worst. Be specific please in what is so abhorrent.

Weel, they could have been straightforward and said 'Yes.' And then they would explain how it's only trace amounts or whatever, and how this is a realistic expectation or a safe level and how it compares to other companies etc. This would have been the more honest answer.

Alright, so then we still arrive at what constitutes a requirement to say "yes our products contain the element lead"?

Is it 100 parts per million? Note, this is the amount allowed for inks for printing as an example. If yes, at what parts per million would Apple or any other manufacturer be required to state such?

Also what manufacturers do report and remove lead from their products that are in the same space as Apple? What cost are we willing as consumers to bear to enable this yes response? If it ends up meaning a phone is 10 000 dollars do you still believe this to be reasonable?

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Educ...

I'm more of the opinion the general public should educate themselves on the allowed lead content and not Apple or any other company.

I find your arguing style effective.

How's this for a requirement to say 'yes our products contain the element lead'.. when you ask yourself the question 'Do [company name] products contain lead?' on your own website attempting to be transparent about environmental efforts. The company can then go on to put whatever qualifying content they'd like, such as the content you're linking to.

Keep in mind I've said when they are attempting to be transparent. That may not be the goal for http://www.apple.com/environment/answers/

Don't forget they're also the ones asking the question, in this case. It's their document, they write the questions and the answers. They could have written, "Do Apple products contain more than trace amounts of lead?" and then answered it with a clear "no".

In this case, I give them credit for asking a clear question, and then attempting to answer it in a nuanced way.

    > Stating Apple is employing misleading tactics without
    > stating what isn't misleading

I thought it was obvious from what I'd written. Prefixing their current answer with the single word "Yes." would have made the whole part feel considerably more trustworthy.

    > is disingenuous at best

Assuming bad faith and saying that the best possible interpretation of someone's actions is that they're being intentionally misleading really has no part on HN, especially as an add-on to poor comprehension.

Your answer implies that the only answer you would accept to the question of if a product contains trace amounts of lead to then be yes.

I am stating that is an unrealistic position without explaining why. Much like stating a reply must be yes or no and only yes or no directly ensures nuance cannot exist.

I was assuming good faith to your questions in my response to you as well. But in your last sentence here I will refrain from any further discussion. Thank you for your time.

Do you contain lead? Please answer yes or no.

That answer is indeed pretty vague. I looked a bit for information on the RoHS directive concerning lead, and it looks like there are plenty of exceptions.

According to [1], it looks like before RoHS, the main use of lead was in solder, in plastic cable coatings, and in red/yellow/orange paint.

That's all prohibited now. However, materials containing lead can apparently still be used if they contain under 0.1% by mass. According to [2], the limit in alloys with steel, aluminium and copper are higher (0.35%, 0.4% and 4% respectively). There are some more exceptions, such as the use of lead in ceramic electronic components (like piezo crystals).

So presumably Apple does use lead somewhere in their devices, but unfortunately they don't tell us where exactly. In some part that might be because they aren't sure themselves (checking if they really get only lead free components from their suppliers is probably not trivial), or because they don't want to tell us about the fact that they are using lead, even if it is only in small amounts.

For example, do their unibody cases contain lead? If I understand correctly, that would be allowed, but unfortunately Apple's answer doesn't say anything specific...

[1]: http://www.cpsc.gov//PageFiles/119190/McGrady.pdf

[2]: http://www.ecodesign.at/pilot/eeg/DEUTSCH/ROHS/DETAILS/AUSNA...

The answer is fine. If someone asked a grocery store, "Is there Mercury in your fish." - answering, "Yes" tells the consumer nothing, because almost all fish/marine mammals have mercury in them - so all fish consumers are exposed to some mercury. Instead, what would be useful to the consumer, is to know if the fish pass certain health standards regarding mercury levels in the fish - you particularly need to be concerned about apex predators such as Tuna/Swordfish/Shark/Pike - see http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/chem/mercuryexpos....

In the same manner, Apple saying, "Yes, we have lead" is meaningless, as there is no harm to the environment for very small amounts of lead, and, in fact, lead is an element naturally found in the human body. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body) - The EPA "Action Level" for lead in water is 15 parts per billion. (See: https://www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/lead-and-copper-rule) So clearly, if that is a level for lead that is in water that you drink every day, then that level inside circuitry, is not going to pose any risks.

At the end of the day, the RoHS standards are what people should be measuring against, not meaningless yes/no answers regarding, "Does product X contain lead."

Less trustworthy according to you. I can appreciate the level of detail in the answer. Guilty until proven innocent is not a valid.

But they didn't actually answer the question, they just listed which parts don't have lead.

Obviously their answer is yes but they are working pretty hard to avoid saying it.

Isn't lead pretty useful in making electronics?

PR optics. Stupid journalists and outrage-based reporting culture make intellectual honesty a very bad policy for public individuals and companies.

They're using less than 1000 PPM for lead. I dunno, that feels like a tiny amount.

Stating they're compliant with RoHS feels better than the alternatives, such as the much misunderstand Californian Proposition 65 warnings.

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