wow man, people sure do make a mountain out of a mole hill. The only reason Apple has pulled out a EPEAT is because they have designed themselves out with the inability to service the units. Specifically, the new Macbook Pro's are completely unserviceable, which would have gotten them pulled off against their will any way. And since apple is going with this design base across the board, there was little point in remaining. It does not mean they are going to start trashing the environment, it just means they arent in the club that wears the green shirt any more. Apple's products themselves (new macbook pro specifically) are no more harmful to the environment then they used to be.
Besides, if you research the issue, the single largest contributor to environmental impact present in the majority of Apple products is, and always has been the battery. And that is past their control, as the damage is done at the disposal end of the devices life.
As to Apple's new design, from an environmental point of view, manufacturing a device with a single board, is actually a GREENER device than one that is modular**. Since its one board, there is one company assembling the components. This eliminates at least 7 different manufacturers process from the equation, and puts it all in one place (Yes, the chips themselves are still made by others, but the manufacture of silicon based chips is the same for nearly everyone) In theory, Apple could control a greater % of the whole mess, and better control the impact. All of this is in a perfect world of course.
All of this, and if you actually read the requirements of EPEAT, you'd realize that they are largely posturing anyway, and do not really make a big difference in the saving of our environment. Lets also talk about the elephant in the living room: ALL OF THESE THINGS (electronics in general, not just apple) ARE MADE IN CHINA! China has virtually NO regulations (by US and EU standards any way) and to expect those huge manufacturing plants like Foxconn to follow any kind of environmental rules to the extent that it would actually help and still do the job for pennies is just delusional. So, everybody calm the hell down, net effect = ZERO.
(As far as my opinion on Apples new design of a single non upgradable board, I call BS on that. Not a fan, considering I got my 2011 MBP with the base of everything then threw in 16 GB of ram and an SSD for 1/4 the price of having apple do it)
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