Apple Inc. has recently asked to remove 39 Apple products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). This decision from Apple has raised some recycling concerns from industry observers and environmentalists alike.

EPEAT is a group that sets environmental standards for electronics and has a set of lifecycle management criteria which includes how easy it is to disassemble a product once it has reached the end of its lifecycle.

The standards were set by different manufacturers, advocacy groups and government agencies. One of the standards mentioned by the group was that recycler should be able to disassemble products in order to be considered as "green".

This standard implies that an average person would be able to take apart the green products through using common tools in order to seperate toxic components such as batteries.

Apple was originally one of the biggest supporter of this group before withdrawing. Apple even utilized the EPEAT rating in calling their Apple laptops as ""the world's greenest family of notebooks."

The new line of MacBook Pro models particularly the MacBook Pro with Retina Display was not able to adhere with the standards that the EPEAT set thus the decision to withdraw not just the MacBook Pro line but a total of 39 products from Apple. Kyle Wiens, the CEO for iFixit mentioned the MacBook Pro with Retina Display as the "least repairable" to date. Here is his explanation over the matter:

"The design may well be comprised of 'highly recyclable aluminum and glass' -- but my friends in the electronics recycling industry tell me they have no way of recycling aluminum that has glass glued to it like Apple did with both this machine and the recent iPad. The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole."

Sarah O'Brien, a spokeswoman for EPEAT, remarked that Apple's reason for withdrawing is due to "a different direction on products, which is why the company doesn't want to be a part of the standard any longer". O'Brien also added that "We hope Apple will come back at some time. Apple is an immensely powerful, immensely smart group."

EPEAT has 49 members worldwide which includes companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo.