Toxics

With Blair's recent departure, recollections of 1997 in the media have been dominated by two things: his ascension to power and the Spice Girls. On the other side of the world in China, that same year was important for a couple of other reasons. Most famously, the lease ran out on a small but strategic piece of land called Hong Kong and the British Empire lost one of its last outposts as ownership return to the People's Republic of China.

But on that same piece of land, about the same time Chris Patten was bidding a teary farewell, something else significant happened (at least, we like to think it was) - Greenpeace China opened its doors. The importance of this particular office to the organisation can't be underestimated and, as this video shows, many of our campaigns can't help but take China's astonishing economic and social development into account. And with China now possibly the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the next ten years are going to be even busier over there.

Our campaign against toxic e-waste in computers and electronic equipment is starting to show results, with many of the biggest names in the business tripping over themselves in the rush not to be left on the bottom rung of our Green Electronics Guide.

So Steve Jobs, Apple guru and all-round groovy guy, has made his keynote speech at MacWorld. But there was something missing - no word on what Apple should be doing to sort out the toxics in its iPods, not to mention their shoddy recycling policy. So we've done a little bit of re-editing so we can all hear what Steve should have said.