So they are suggesting that there is less reproduction from males who spend a long time using games consoles ?

Shock me!

Here we go again. Most of the chemicals are only "dangeous" if ingested or licked or sucked on for a long time. I think even the most determined 2 year old would have trouble swallowing a 360!

Greenpeace must be getting low on funding again, so trying to find issues that aren't there to get some cahs in.

Well i'll try to stop opening up my console and eating the components until greenpeace say its safe...

I guess it was greener after the french secret service sank it. Still, i appreciate that they have pointed out that young males may not develop sexually if they are glued to their console, but its irrelevent because none of them would be able to get a girlfriend anyway!

Now, are they going to point out how ungreen it is to have the telly that the consoles are played on? or the electricity it uses? or the fact that mum and dad have to drive to work more to be able to afford little johnny's new console? The only way to go green is to get rid of all the fun things......

While it's helpful that Greenpeace are keeping the console manufacturers on their toes, it does seem fair that hey aren't classified as toys.

I can see that a child may put it's toy in it's mouth, I can't really see the same happening to the insides of a console.

just apply spray paint

</groan>

"" Phthalates are believed to interfere with sexual development in male mammals.""

Who cares how 'green' a console is - I'm already top-score with 570,000 on the Wii-sports "Club a Baby Seal" game!

What a ridiculous comment, do you really think that's the only way hazardous chemicals are likely to affect a person - if they eat the console?

Consoles tend to be replaced every few years (or more often in the case of the 360), they are most likely put into landfill; burying hazardous chemicals isn't the safest way to stop them from joining our water supplies.

You can see in the picture... lots of green. My 360 is covered in green bits...

Okay the PS3 is black and the Wii is white... So get an xbox and the eco fiends will leave you alone...

mines the one with the hemp lining and reed twine zip

Greenpeace would be a lot better off ensuring that said toxins, nasty chemicals etc are disposed of and produced responsibly rather than moaning that they are used in something.

On the same logic, Greenpeace should be campaigning against Church Roofs. I'm sure that would get a hell of a lot more publicity.

But that's not the point, is it? There's always been a certain amount of insinuation that technology is inherently bad in and of itself and if people would just stop hankering for it then everything would be alright. It's this lazy kind of activism that really winds me up - let's get something that's totally not important all over the media in the vainglorious hope that we'll get some crossover coverage on the other stuff, like large scale pollution of groundwater due to the cynanide leaching method of mining. Does it happen? Of course not! All the media consultants and PR flunkies are busy working on the next non-issue press release and pretty soon that's all you become known for. The sad thing is that Greenpeace used to put out the odd nugget that actually made sense and set one thinking. I haven't seen one for nearly a decade though.

On a side note, chemicals stopping people having kids is surely good for the environment as population pressure is one of the biggest threats to it.

"Worryingly, Greenpeace found pthalates in both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Phthalates are believed to interfere with sexual development in male mammals."

Well, from the crap I see spouted by various console fanbois, I'd suggest there isn't a problem - they are obviously well sexually developed, as otherwise, how could be possibly be such total wankers.

<insert generic "greenpiece - arsepiece more like it" vaguely right-of-centre commment here>

Steven R

Two words - pi$$ off.

"Worryingly, Greenpeace found pthalates in both the Xbox 360 and PS3"

Pthalates are absolutely everywhere, no point worrying about the tiny amounts in the wiring in consoles believe me.

"The only way to go green is to get rid of all the fun things......"

And that's their aim I reckon, as well as having us all live third-world lifestyles so we don't damage the earth at all.

Get your coat & leave you plebs.

"...are believed to interfere with sexual development in male mammals."

Who wants to mate with a gaming dork, anyway... that's the only thing hampering my reproductive capability. "Hey baby, wanna see me pwn mad noobs?" doesn't really go over well in a bar, which is why we have, GTA 4... "Oh, Kate, you complete me."

That explains it! Not the hours sat in front of a TV playing with my joystick, it was the Phthalates.

<sues Sony for stopping me fulfilling my genetic imperatives, hence causing the preemptive slaughter of any descendants I might have some day>

Another victory for irrationality.

"Still, without Greenpeace nagging at companies and lobbying of governments, would Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have achieved this much? We suspect not."

Achieved what? Bowing to a non-existent threat?

Greenpeace would be even happier if there were no games consoles - they're a decadent capitalist extravagance. As is anything modern. People must be made to be as unhappy as possible.

Remember that Greenpeace is never low on funding. Their annual budget in 2005 was 173 million Euros -

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/annual-report-2006.pdf

All they need is gullible journalists who can reprint the manufactured scare stories without question.

a load of shite. Greenpeace really are spreading out all the marketing tricks to drag in every last bit of cash they possibly can.

It's been sometime since I shagged, ate, burnt, smoked, licked, or hell even threw away a console (how many folks still have their old banged up ps1, nes, sega master system kicking about?)

Greenpeace, rebels without a cause but a very large pay check from mum, dad and the guilt ridden public.

that my 35 year old Landrover is greener than a Toyota Prius as the landy only consists of Mud, Rust, Iron and Bakalite! unlike the pasto-chemical-carcenogen fest that is a battery driven plastic pratmobile that is so beloved of the eco consumer.

Sorry but if you CAN make a games console without all these chemicals, then why not? Im not some eco-warrior, but it seems stupid to use arguments about not eating the components as a reason to do nothing! Especially when in 5 years millions of these things will go to the dump, probably end up in land fill, leak the chemicals into the surrounding ground water and then find their way into your drinking water. [Im a Civil Engineer by trade and I know the logistics of land fills and how thats highly unlikely, but its not unknown..]

I'd like to see greenpeace make something greener instead of nagging like a constipated sow.

>>> Here we go again. Most of the chemicals are only "dangeous" if ingested or licked or sucked on for a long time. I think even the most determined 2 year old would have trouble swallowing a 360!

What happens with the chemicals when you throw away your console, you ecological genius?

The use of Ftalates in consoles is innecesary. I really serves almost no purpose.. they should use rubber instead of softened plastics.

As for using fire retardants.. there is no other way for consoles that get so hot.. and are used by children. Remeber: they may do a lot of nasty things with the poor machines...

But the really bad part is the huge use of energy.. couple that with a nice 42" plasma tv....

Are they allowed to take apart games consoles and analyse the components? Isn't that reverse engineering in some form?

I would like to remind everybody that most electronic devices end up on the landfill, leaching posonous elements, or burned to recover valuable metals.. so these products WILL be released...

"Microsoft has, according to Greenpeace, committed itself to eliminating the use of............. brominated flame-retardants in its hardware by 2010."

And in 2011 mankind perishes in a tide of flaming Xboxes. Thanks Greenpeace!

I've never bothered with consoles before but if Greenpeace object to them for whatever reason I now feel the urge to go out and buy one.

If it's fun, the bloody tree-hugging nazis want to stop it.

... GREEPEACE HAS TOO MANY HIPPIES.

"Still, without Greenpeace nagging at companies and lobbying of governments, would Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have achieved this much? We suspect not."

This is probably the most important part of the article. Without these whingers then there qould be no RoHS and children's toys would still be covered in lead-rich paint, even the ones not made in China.

"Well i'll try to stop opening up my console and eating the components until greenpeace say its safe..."

Has it ever crossed your mind that your console existed before you bought it and will continue to do so after you chuck it in the bin? It may be surprising but solipsism is only a hypothesis, when stuff leaves your immediacy it does not just cease to exist.

A number of comments regarding landfills and leaching but none giving numbers. Where are the studies showing the rates of leaching for the products mentioned and areas where this has become a problem? Please provide links.

listen when greenpeace build a eco-friendly console that is as good as my playstation 3 or my xbox 360 i will buy one, but until then the hippys can just S.T.F.U !

we are ALL going to hell in a handcart so we might as well enjoy the ride.

Is this the same Greenpeace that claimed that sinking an oil platform would release millions of tons of harmful chemicals into the sea, inspiring firebombing of petrol stations around Europe and then, after the oil company dragged the platform onshore for breakup said "oops, we might have got this one wrong".

Strangely enough that part didn't get anything like the media coverage that the initial claims did.

Wow, most posters have totally misunderstood the issue.

Greenpiece[sic] are bitching about the nasty stuff used to manufacture electronics.

You know: arsenic bearing compounds, hydrofluoric acid, etc.

Even Paris would've understood that.

Who want us to own Hybrid Cars even though the cost more in Carbon Emmissions to make than they will offset in their lives. They are also not as fuel efficeient as claimed (in fact my 13 year old Ford Fiesta 1.3 is more fuel effiecient)

To put this in context, so NO Greenpeace[sic] person owns anything with electronics in them then...are they are ALL Hypocrites.

Greenpeace is about raising issues to get their agenda on the table. They aren't interested in a dialogue with manufacturers, or anyone to be honest. As long as they can feel good about themselves in their smug little ways everyone else can go get stuffed.

Had a 'discussion' with Greenpeace in a town centre. I wanted them to convince me to sign their petition. They weren't interested in talking, only my signature.

I could understand if they're worried about the long-term dissemination of nasty chemicals into the ecosystem after the consoles have been land-filled.

But then again, we pump so many bad chemicals in to the ecosystem, a few million consoles is unlikely to make much difference. Hell, last time anyone checked there was a whole bunch of Russian nuclear submarines going rotten along the banks of the Volga (or some other river, I think it was that one) that'll start depositing reactor-grade nuclear material directly into the sea fairly soon, right near a major fishing zone.

Let's see Greenpeace get the Rainbow Warrior there and clean that mess up, then we'll talk about my controller f*cking up the delicate balance of nature.

Mines the coat with the Bill Hicks CDs in it