Say cheese

Digital cameras may take a pretty photo, but the picture for workers isn't so rosy. Mary Rayner investigates...

With digital cameras now making up nearly 90% of the market, traditional film cameras are going the way of the dodo.(1) Labour rights issues are suffering from the same problem, with the industry failing miserably to report on working conditions. The Konica and Minolta camera brands, both Best Buys in previous reports, have since been bought by Sony, resulting in a drop in their Ethiscore rating. However, on the environmental front it's not all bad news — there are effective environmental choices to be made.

Supply chain blues

It's hugely disappointing to see that not one of the companies on the table has a clear code of conduct setting minimum standards for working conditions at supplier factories. With all of the companies in the table producing their goods in the Far East, where working standards are routinely poor, consumers have little choice but to purchase products made in dubious conditions.

Matsushita, which owns the Panasonic brand, used to receive our middle rating for its supply chain policy. However, we have recently tightened our rating to reflect the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code more closely. This specifies minimum standards in areas such as child labour, collective bargaining and living wages. In order for a company to be awarded our best rating, its policy must also be subject to independent monitoring.

You can urge companies to implement an independently monitored code of conduct by emailing them from this Ethiscore.org website by clicking on the brand name on the table.

Samsung in China

Earlier this year, underage 'interns' were said to have been found working at the Dongguan Samsung Electro-Mechanics plant in China. Although the presence of interns was said to be legal for training purposes, it was alleged that the young people made up a quarter of the entire factory workforce. The incident was said to be part of a growing pattern in China of spurious vocational schools being set up so that people too young to work legally could be 'placed' for a fee paid to the head of the 'school.'(2)

Toxic turnaround?

Greenpeace's Chemical Home campaign pressurises companies to remove highly toxic chemicals from their products. Of the companies on the table, Samsung and Sony have Greenpeace's amber rating as they have committed to the removal of these harmful chemical pollutants by a certain date across their whole product range.(15) Panasonic has a red rating for its poor performance and was one of a number of companies listed in Greenpeace's 2006 e-waste "hall of shame" for failing to remove hazardous chemicals from its products and poor performance on responsible disposal.(6)

Environmentally-friendly photos?

So, do digital cameras mean environmentally-friendly photos? We take a look at the environmental impacts of cameras and the plethora of gadgets that have sprung up around them.

Charging
Digital cameras eat up battery power much faster than older analogue ones and can use up batteries in just one or two sessions. Obviously, rechargeables will be a better option. In our last report on rechargeable batteries (issue 100), we recommended NiMH batteries (rather than NiCds) for environmental reasons. Which? advises that for digital cameras you need to aim for those with a capacity of at least 2000mAh.

Storing
Storing your photos on re-writeable CDs ('CDRW') is an environmentally preferable alternative to CDRs, which can be used only once. Another option is to upload your photos onto a photo-sharing website. In 2005, one of the most widely used photo sharing sites, Flickr.com, was bought by Yahoo!, which has been accused of complicity with the Chinese government for blocking the blogs and email accounts of pro-democracy activists. Yahoo was also accused of having handed personal information about one dissident over to the Chinese authorities.(4)

Printing
If you don�t own a computer, you can buy a photo printer that will work directly from your camera. The following companies covered on the table also sell photo printers: Canon, Fujifilm, Kodak, Olympus, Sanyo and Sony.

You'll also need to invest in ink cartridges and photo-quality paper, both of which come at a price. Over 700 million cartridges were thrown away worldwide in 2003.(5) These parts are all non-biodegradable and take more than 1000 years to decompose. You can cut your environmental impact by purchasing remanufactured cartridges and recycling old ones. The Green Stationary Company and Environmental Business Products sell a range of remanufactured cartridges. Environmental Business Products also accepts old ones and donates money to charity in the process. See 'contacts' at the end of this article.

Annoyingly, there is as yet no recycled photo-quality paper available in the UK. The next best environmental option is chlorine-free paper, again available from The Green Stationary Company. It's not cheap, so financially you may be better off using a printing service.

Unless you're going to be using your own printer frequently, then environmentally (and financially), a printing service is preferable. Otherwise, it's just another hardly-used gadget that eventually winds up in landfill. Fujifilm assured us that the Crystal Archive paper used in its minilabs (available in shops such as Boots) was chlorine-free, although we were unable to find any information to support this on the company�s website. Unfortunately, the remaining commercial photo printers that we contacted either didn�t know whether their paper was chlorine-free, or were unable to offer it.

Contacts

The Green Stationary Company www.greenstat.co.uk 01225 480 556
Environmental Business Products www.inkagain.co.uk 0800 435 576
Ethical Trading Initiative www.ethicaltrade.org 020 7404 1463

References

1 Mintel Essentials, Digital Cameras, 5/06
2 CSR Asia Weekly: Vol 2 week 17, 26/4/06
4 Amnesty International, "Amnesty accuses Yahoo, Microsoft and Google of hypocrisy in China", 20/7/06
5 www.inkagain.co.uk/collection/ink_env_issues.shtml, 31/8/06
6 www.greenpeace.org, 23/2/06
7 The Toxic 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters in the United States: Top corporate air polluters named, 11/5/06
8 www.kodak.com, 29/3/05
9 www.fujinon.co.jp, 17/8/06)
10 www.ffei.co.uk, 17/8/06
11 World Nuclear Industry Handbook, 2004
12 International Defence Directory, 2004
13 www.pentaxtech.com, 6/4/05
14 www.samsungtechwin.com, 29/1/04
15 www.greenpeace.org.uk/Products/Toxics/chemicalhouse.cfm?producttypeid=11&productid=156, 4/9/06