Apple Mac Pro Odour Issues – Alleged ‘Toxic’ Elements Blamed As Greenpeace Gets on the Case

Ask many an owner of a new Apple Mac Pro about its smell and the chances are you’ll get a range of answers ranging from a discernable ‘stench’ comparable to ‘rotten apples’ to ‘my new Apple Mac Pro smells like weed’ (yes, that weed – we kid you not) and now, thanks to Greenpeace becoming involved, the root of the widely reported odour appears, according to Liberation, to have been isolated as being (allegedly) down to ‘seven volatile organic contaminants’ comprising, in part of styrene, benzene and its derivatives.

A quick visit to Apple’s forums serves to highlight the extent of the ‘new Apple Mac Pro odour problem’ with end users reporting the smell as being associated, in particular, with new systems built prior to this year.

‘The problem is my Mac smells of weed.’ writes one poster. ‘I don’t notice it until I leave the room; when I return… skunk weed. Clients have commented on it, my wife thinks I have been smoking instead of working, it is a bit of a problem!’ whilst another poster chimes in ‘Ah … the proverbial new-Mac smell. Nothing like it.’ Interestingly, another user adds ‘This is so weird! I’m convinced my Mac Pro smells of a sort of melted chocolate.’ Still – and excuse our flippancy for a second – its better than smelling of sweaty socks, we suppose.

What is not in doubt is that new Apple Mac Pro’s are widely reported as having ‘a certain odour’ and, whilst speculation has been rife concerning the possible origin of the ‘new-Mac smell’, according to Liberation, the source of the smell has, thanks to scientists working on the behalf of Greenpeace, been identified as being ‘ seven volatile organic contaminants’. Interestingly, according to Liberation, Apple are not only aware of the issues discovered by the scientist engaged by Greenpeace but have, the report states, had a copy of the scientist’s analysis since February.

If you are experiencing the much reported ‘new-Mac smell’ you may find Liberation’s article of interest and, rather than merely rehash it here, we are happy to link to (an English translation) of it, as given below, for your perusal. It makes extremely interesting reading.

Perhaps the ‘weed’ smell could explain why Apple Mac users are so very laid back (apparently) in comparrison to PC users (as Apple’s advertising would have you believe)? Perhaps we could be onto something here.

Liberation | Apple Forums [via UberReview]