If there’s one thing about acronyms, it’s that people can make up some pretty interesting variations on what they stand for. For example, check out this News.com story: “Greenpeace: HP stands for ‘harmful products’.” 

According to the story, Greenpeace protestors are handing out leaflets in front of HP’s headquarters. “The demonstration is part of Greenpeace’s efforts to get electronics makers to cease using brominated flame retardants. Scientists suspect some of those materials of being carcinogens.”

Even though “the U.S. Environment Protection Agency has found that the most common brominated retardant, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, do not pose an unreasonable risk to the environment or human health,” research last year reported that “traces of brominated fire retardants turned up in chemical residue found in dust samples swiped from computers and other electronics devices. The problem with PBDEs is that they are similar in chemical makeup to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which have been found to promote cancer in lab animals.”

I think that Greenpeace has its hands full if it plans to fight the environmentally friendly fight against all of the consumer products that contain brominated flame retardants. It is curious why they decided to focus on HP…. what a Helluva Position.