'Laptops by leading co contain toxins'

Laptops manufactured by a leading computer firm have a number of highly toxic susbstances that are hazardous to health and environment, international environmental NGO Greenpeace alleged on Tuesday.

Releasing a test report 'Analysis of Hazardous Substance in an HCL Laptop', the NGO claimed that tests have revealed hazardous substances such as lead, PVC, bromine and phthalates in the components of the laptop.

"These findings come from an investigation carried out on an HCL laptop at our research laborartory and at the laboratories of Eurofins in Denmark," Ramapati Kumar of Greenpeace told reporters in New Delhi.

He claimed that hazardous susbtances were found in large concentrations. Demanding a time-bound action plan on part of the company to remove toxic substances from its products and introduce a full take-back system for end-of-life-products, Greenpeace stressed the need to implement Restriction of Hazardous Susbstance being followed in European countries.

An HCL spokesman told PTI that "HCL as a socially responsible corporate citizen is committed to ensure protection of environment, health and safety of all stakeholders."

"As part of our continuous efforts towards environment protection, we have an ongoing programme on voluntary compliance to RoHS directives. Today, all HCL laptops currently manufactured in our plants are fully RoHS-compliant. We will shortly announce compliance to RoHS directives across all our products," he said.

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