11 ms·

Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and Macbooks

185 points by bootload 9y ago

Scoundreller 9y ago
Old Apple parts are worth quite a bit. If yours is broken, part-it out. Even a Macbook Air. I was able to part-out my old Macbook air (with broken battery and power adapter) and put toward the proceeds and ~US$200 toward the latest's model: Apple just has that tight control over its parts pre- and post- use.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  Indeed - 13 years ago, I had a side-line buying junk PowerBooks on eBay for very little ($100-$200), cobbling them together into perfectly working machines, and then selling them on for $1000+. I only ever tied up ~$2000 at a time, and would sell working parts I had no use for on, and even broken parts, as someone will want it, even if not for much. Never did any deep repairs, just part swapping and replacement. As an added bonus I always had a snazzy laptop, as I'd sometimes hang on to a high spec machine for a few months before selling it on. From what I can see on eBay today, it's still an eminently viable cottage industry.
- pkaye 9y ago
  Where do you sell an older Mac at a good price?
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    Ebay, I've never had any trouble disposing of old computers.
watertorock 9y ago
Sounds wasteful
dba7dba 9y ago
How Apple is known as an environmentally conscious company while [[ 1 == 1 ]]; do 1. Make products near impossible to repair. 2. Do not allow parts to be available for purchase for repair. 3. Brick product if repaired. 4. Advertise like hexx that Apple is a environmentally conscious company. done
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  What really bugs me about this is the hypocrisy. E.g. take Al Gore, self styled environmentalist, and author of books like An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. He's on the Apple Board of Directors and has been on it for many many years. He's willing to take their money, but he's also willing to look the other way when it comes to actual environmentalism, rather than the appearance thereof.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 9y ago
    The truth is, no company wants the risk. All it takes is one of these recyclers to skimp out on basic drive formatting once and you get an article about how you can buy cheap macbooks and harvest them for data. Look at what happened with printers (HP's bottom line took a hit there), where you could buy a printer that had like 500,000 pages printed out of it for pennies.
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      You can't basic drive format a SSD. You must shred or melt or explode to be safe.
      - umanwizard 9y ago
        No, you can just issue a secure wipe command to the drive. If the firmware isn't buggy, your data will be unrecoverable.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        Just write over the data. If it really took 7 overwrites to erase data, then manufacturers would be selling 7T drives instead of 1T drives.
dshi 9y ago
Kind of off topic, but: I've been trying to shred iphones and macbooks for a while now for my art. (Much like in "will it blend") I intend to work with the shredded metal/dust as a pigment. Does anyone have any pointers how to actually shred these devices?
- sjg007 9y ago
  Seems dangerous..
- Gracana 9y ago
  Maybe you could shred into small chunks first and then use a ball mill with heavy and hard media. Would be very time consuming and expensive and the result would be toxic, of course.
  - rimunroe 9y ago
    Note to be careful with the grinding media too, as you really don't want sparking in a chamber filled with aluminum powder.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Eric_WVGG 9y ago
  http://willitblend.com http://willitblend.com has video of shredding pretty much every iphone model.
y0ssar1an 9y ago
All those devices have user data on flash or hard disk that could be recovered. I'm glad they're shredding them.
- deelowe 9y ago
  They don't have to shred the whole assembly...
- userbinator 9y ago
  A counterargument and something to ponder: we may have lost a huge amount of history, if centuries ago people always destroyed their stone tablets/parchments/etc. thoroughly after using them.
  - baobrain 9y ago
    I don't think it really matters in this case since flash degrades much faster than stone tablets. Also, I think stone tablets would be more akin to tax records or census data or great works rather than every day life of someone.
    - userbinator 9y ago
      Stone tablets are more rugged than other media, but others have survived; here's an example someone else posted recently: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-time...
- comstock 9y ago
  I was thinking about this, but I don't really think it's a good argument. Most Apple devices can already be securely erased, many laptops can easily have hard drives removed. I think the argument only works for totally non-functional iPhones/tablets where flash recovery might be possible, but it's not possible to run the secure erase procedure.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  Maybe they should start making storage removable again.
userbinator 9y ago
I wonder how many others also have such strong negative reactions to this sort of mass destruction. It is hard to explain the feeling, but regardless of the product or manufacturer, seeing something which most certainly took a lot of effort to design and create brutally pulverised almost makes me want to cry. On the other hand, maybe a lot of other people love seeing things destroyed, as evidenced by the popularity of shredder videos on YouTube, or maybe it's interesting in the same way as car crashes and other disasters.
- protomyth 9y ago
  Considering hand-me-down computers are such a common thing where I am, it makes me quite angry. We often piece two or more broken computers together to give to a student.
  - petecox 9y ago
    This may extend he computer's usable life but what happens to those computers once the student is done with them? In my affluent neighbourhood, computers are often dumped at the roadside. Our council does have a recycling program for e-waste but I'm not sure of the transparency of the operation in terms of what percentage ends up in landfill. I'm not condoning Apple's actions from the re-use point of view here but in the longer term, shredding computers at an industrial scale may be better for the environment than having a graveyard of 20 year old computers buried in a massive hole at the municipal tip.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      They get recycled just years later after more value is extracted out of them. We teach our students that electronics and batteries have special recycling procedures.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      I did most of my work for a couple of years on an expensive gaming rig found out by the dumpster. The RAM had been removed but everything else was still there (including a hard drive with a bunch of porn and virus). Replaced the dirty drive, new RAM and it was far better than any machine I could justify buying at the time.
comstock 9y ago
It's not totally clear to me that shreding older models of MacBooks isn't the environmental sound thing to do. Laptops have become massively more efficient and consume significantly less electricity. It some cases it must be better to take them out of use and replace them with more efficient modern replacements.
- clishem 9y ago
  > At some point And instead of letting the market decide when a laptop is bound for replacement, let's force people to destroy it. Of course! Makes perfect sense! Apple is doing this because newer laptops are more energy efficient! How great of Apple! Such environment, so wow!
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    The market doesn't have a great track record on environmentally friendly best practices.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    The market has decided. Case 1: it was a perfectly functioning computer but the owner wanted something new. They could hand it down, donate it directly to a charity, or sell it through a company like Gazelle. I don't think I've gotten rid of a single computer in 10 years. I have 4 pre 2009 computers that I know are still in good use after installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 on them (thanks to an MSDN license). One of those four is a 2006 era Core Duo Mac Mini. The 2008 era Core 2 Duo is being used now as a Plex Server. Case 2: they were returned to Apple under warranty, Apple cleaned them up and sold them refurbished. Apple has been selling refurbished devices for over 10 years. Case 3: they weren't worth selling or refurbishing.
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    There is absolutely nothing stopping people from reselling old Apple products. The market has every opportunity to work just fine. If it ended up at a recycler, it is intended to be destroyed. That's what recycling means. The plastic bottles you throw in recycling get shredded too, even though they could undoubtedly be refilled and reused.
scdoshi 9y ago
I might be missing something, but seems to me like the products are still recycled, but as raw materials, not as full devices. This makes sense, given data is almost certainly bound to be present on phones etc. Maybe there's a more nuanced way to do this, but this doesn't seem all that bad. OTOH, having these phones go through a refurb program and selling them probably involves a fair amount or resource use as well.
- clishem 9y ago
  Forcing recyclers to shred perfectly fine phone components makes sense because data is bound to be present 'etc'. My "Hacker" "News" moment of the day.
  - Tanegashima 9y ago
    Who said they are "perfectly fine"? Also, it's not up to you, the costumer decided to deliver the device for recycling and not for scrap.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Reusing is more efficient than recycling can ever be. The resources used to refurb and resell are a tiny fraction of those required to go from raw material (recycled or mined) to a new phone. As far as data goes, soft tools will stop anyone but the NSA. If you're worried about the NSA you don't toss your phone in a collection box. Yes, you are missing something.
- arthurcolle 9y ago
  > Maybe there's a more nuanced way to do this, but this doesn't seem all that bad. Like removing the flash storage first, maybe...?
  - throwanem 9y ago
    With all the human labor that'd take, you'd pay more for refurb than for new.
therealmarv 9y ago
For people who don't understand that: In countries outside USA/western world we reuse things and repair things if they are still usable. Shredding ALWAYS and calling your company GREEN is a LIE (to the Earth and customers) and PR joke @Apple.
- Osmose 9y ago
  I mean, this happens in the USA as well. Here in Portland we have Free Geek[1], which rebuilds computers from donations and gives them to community volunteers who help recycle them in the first place. Anecdotally, the reuse part of recycling was pretty heavily emphasized when I was in school being taught about the importance of recycling. [1] http://www.freegeek.org/ http://www.freegeek.org/
- eridius 9y ago
  If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore. The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Usable devices should be re-used; if it's being recycled, there must be a reason. And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other people. And doing a full quality assurance pass on every single component is not something that recyclers can really do. Apple doesn't want its users to end up with devices that have faulty parts, and the only real way to do that is to require the recyclers to actually destroy the devices instead of salvaging them. Also, I find it really strange that the article expressly mentions that hard drives are shredded. Of course they're shredded! You don't want any risk at all of someone else recovering data off of those things. Plus the whole quality issue as mentioned above.
  - cmdrfred 9y ago
    >The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Some people will accept lower quality at a dramatically lower price. I'm one of them, I buy used and broken items and repair them. That's the free market at work. Apple would prefer that I buy a new product from them thus this policy. Now I have no problem with this policy if that's what they wish, but you can't have it and scream about how "green" you are in the same breath.
internet2000 9y ago
People are acting like they're shredding last year's iPhone models. Apple products have great resell value and they're passed on as hand-me-downs often. If something got back to Apple, chances are reusing parts is not plausible. Not much you can harvest from an iPhone 3G other than the raw materials.
- gravypod 9y ago
  Some would strongly disagree that these phones don't have use. One great example is this: https://rfcx.org/ https://rfcx.org/ These phones are only cheap because the consumer market is giving them away (high supply). That makes them very good for specific applications and given the presense of complex sensors, battery backup, and small form factor you have a very attractive package for potentially important use cases. That's also just setting asside the idea that someone might want to use these pieces. Some third world countries may benifit from a huge influx of cheap technology every year.
  - nathancahill 9y ago
    Very cool link. I'm going to see if they are working in Guatemala, or if there's something similar being done there. Illegal land invasions in the national parks are a huge problem, but it's less of a detection issue and more of an enforcement/corruption issue.
- wmf 9y ago
  I can imagine that quite a few broken phones get recycled even though 90% of the parts are still usable.
  - internet2000 9y ago
    That doesn't seem likely. The most common failure points for iPhones are cracked screens, worn out batteries and broken home buttons, all of which Apple can repair. If it's something stronger like water damage, the electronics can't be relied on to be reused.
miguelrochefort 9y ago
I have found 10 fully-functional MacBook Pros (2009-2012) in my building's electronic recycling bin. I imagine that's fairly common. One of those (MacBook Pro 2012 13" Core i7 2.9GHz 8GB RAM) became my main computer. It's sad to think it would have been shredded had I not saved it.
- quasse 9y ago
  My laptops for the last 7 years now have all been ones I found in the trash or recycling bins. I've had two macbooks, and HP with an i7, and a decent Acer. The stuff people trash is mind boggling, it's like they lose all powers of rational thought when it comes to valuing used electronics. A few hours of effort for $250+ on Ebay? Nah, trash it!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sandworm101 9y ago
It may sound odd, but this is standard practice in most "recycling" environments. When you recycle an aluminium can it doesn't get refilled. It gets melted into new aluminium. Even if the can is perfectly good and could be sanitized, to ensure constant quality it is best to start anew from the fundamental ingredients. Seeing a macbook shredded looks horrible, but if those bits are being properly recycled into new components then I can see apple's point. Rebuilding from the ground up is probably much easier than picking and testing every little component to ensure quality. If you own a car, it has steel parts. Some of that steel is recycled metal from old cars. We consider it new. But would you be willing to pay the same price for a car with a chassis harvested from an older car? What level of testing would be needed for you to pay the same price as the car with a chassis built anew? If that testing costs more than a couple hundred, the logical thing is to melt.
- afuchs 9y ago
  Old cars are often used to source parts for the repair of other cars. It's common practice, which has persisted without any major problems. Likewise, 3rd-party repair shops will often harvest parts from old phones, to replace parts in phones they are repairing. Picking and testing components doesn't appear to be a problem for them. Their customers seem to have no issue with recycled parts being used to repair their phones. If there is demand for recycled parts, and they can be reused while still ensuring quality, what is the problem?
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    But apple doesn't want to sell used or refurbished phones, only shiny new ones.
    - ginko 9y ago
      It's none of Apple's business what people are doing with their phones after they bought them.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Apple sells a ton of refurbished phones and Macs. I have one.
csense 9y ago
I've never bought an Apple product in my life. This article makes me feel good about that decision.
- scarface74 9y ago
  So I assume you buy Android phones from companies that don't keep their devices updated with the latest OS basically forcing you to buy a new phone if you want the latest OS/security patches. Apple has traditional supported iOS devices for at least 3-4 years with OS updates. My old first generation iPad 2010 can still get older versions of current apps from the App Store.
  - sitkack 9y ago
    Only when those apps haven't been pulled. Try and buy some of those apps from a fresh account. Not possible. One can literally not install GoodReader on an Ipad1 at this point.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Yes the app creator can pull an app or not allow older versions to be downloaded. In my case, I came across my old iPad recently, reset it and was able to install Hulu, Netflix, Crackle, Google Drive, Plex, Spotify,and the CW app Edit: I was also able to download Apple's productivity apps -Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
      - sitkack 9y ago
        You are lucky. There is a neat workaround for getting old apps onto an old IPad. 1) you can gift from one ipad to another, 2) you can install the older app if you have bought the newer version but it wouldn't install. I did this for a friend who bought an ipad but couldn't get Goodreader (no longer recommend) to install because they pulled the version that works on IPad1. I think companies should be required to release the encryption keys or provide a way to install software on devices that are EoL. So many IPads got "recycled" that could have been put to better use. I think Goodreader could do the world a great service by selling a version that installs on first gen IPads, they make pretty good budget ereaders for pdf content.
apinstein 9y ago
A majority of comments here seem to think that literally millions of units of electronics are being shredded wastefully, instead of more meaningfully re-used. Ok, great! This is HN! Where are the calls to start a company to leverage this near-infinite supply of valuable trash through economically productive re-use? Should be very profitable, right? Another distinct possibility is that the proportion of valuable items in this stream is too small to warrant their recovery. There are already tons of people that refurb and sell computers. It's a small market, and increasing the supply by 100x (or whatever the multiple of "wasted" recycling opportunities is) would likely distort that market into total collapse.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  I take it you're being facetious. The referenced article discusses some of the contractual language that Apple uses to hinder re-use, and they aren't the only ones. The real risk of course are unscrupulous vendors who sell as 'new' things they have recovered either on Ebay or Amazon which turns around and bites the original manufacturer because the customer complains their parts are bad. Having dealt with many of the major recycling centers in the bay area, and the resellers, and the various people in between, the maze of laws and contracts make unwinding this nearly impractical in most cases. It is pretty amazing when someone is willing to sneak a $250,000 mini-computer to you out the back of the building because the corporate "requirements" are that a perfectly serviced and operating machine be sent to shredding rather than do anything else. Of course you really can't make a business off their largess but a number of important computer systems were saved in similar ways. Generally there is often more value to the manufacturer that they not be recycled and so we end up with these sorts of contracts.
- qb45 9y ago
  > A majority of comments here seem to think that literally millions of units of electronics are being shredded wastefully, instead of more meaningfully re-used. Ok, great! This is HN! Where are the calls to start a company to leverage this near-infinite supply of valuable trash through economically productive re-use? Should be very profitable, right? There are already companies doing it. TFA talks about iThings collected by Apple themselves whose recycling Apple outsourced to others under the condition that everything will be teared down to raw materials. Have a look here for some real recycling action: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 edit: Hell, it's right there in TFA: "Electronics recyclers are filled with heaps of broken iMacs and MacBooks, which due to economics and the requirements of certifications are most often scrapped rather than repaired or sold," John Bumstead, a refurbisher who sells MacBooks that he salvages and frankensteins together from broken ones that he gets from recyclers that don't work with Apple, told me. In trying to source MacBooks to repair, Bumstead says he's been turned away countless times by recyclers who say they can't sell him Apple products. So yeah, the question is not whether recycling itself is profitable or not. The problem is that Apple apparently has sufficient profit margins that to them recycling is less profitable than shredding the old iGadgets to raw materials and reforging them into the latest shiny. Especially if it's done in China where the resulting pollution doesn't affect them as much.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
Perhaps I am jaded a bit on Apple, just a little, but this sounds like they want to control the entire lifecycle of their products. They want to design, manufacturer, sell, repair, and recycle. This seems basic vertical integration 101.
- Tanegashima 9y ago
  Infowars.com
  - sctb 9y ago
    Please stop commenting unsubstantively. http://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
victornomad 9y ago
One day I entered in one of the labs in a previous company and found a few piles of "old" macbooks pro ready to trash. I would say easily around 500' They seemed quite new to me so I asked if I could get a bunch and reuse parts to make a working one. They told me I could get all I wanted. So I took 10. I arrived home and all of them were functional after formating and reinstalling. My family and friends got very happy with seminew laptops for free. I guess is not only about recycling or shredding, is as well about giving a second, third or fourth life to our goods... And lets be honest. Recycling is a very wasteful process. If we want to be eco friendly we should consume less, thats the only way.
- adrianN 9y ago
  There is a reason "recycle" comes last in "reduce, reuse, recycle". But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse.
  - pg314 9y ago
    > But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse. That 'the invisible hand' (by which I assume you mean the free market) prevents reuse is simply not true. In a competitive free market you would have companies that would specialise in reuse. For Apple's products that is exactly what happens: there are actually quite a few companies selling refurbished second hand Apple products (e.g. [1] and [2]), including Apple itself [3]. Of course, regulation sometimes gets in the way: India's prime minister Modi is preventing Apple from selling second hand iPhones in India in an attempt to get them to start producing products in India. The free market has many short-comings. Preventing reuse is not one of them. [1] https://leapp.be/nl https://leapp.be/nl [2] https://www.forza-refurbished.be/?gclid=CNb63IaEutMCFSEG0wodTKQIyw https://www.forza-refurbished.be/?gclid=CNb63IaEutMCFSEG0wod... [3] https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac [4] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/tim-cook-keen-to-sell-indians-second-hand-iphones-at-lower-rates-but-pm-modi-says-make-in-india/articleshow/52368862.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/tim-cook-k...
Tanegashima 9y ago
These devices are sold by the users to Apple for recycling, Apple can't do anything with them besides recycling. Nothing to see here, conspiracy theorists.
mankash666 9y ago
Anyone still remember the video of a recycling machine Apple showed off at WWDC a few years back? Turns out it was all PR
- jpalomaki 9y ago
  I checked, the video[1] does not say that the components are being re-used. It talks about the materials. At some point there was some articles about how the e-waste ends up in poor countries where human labor is cheap and workers rights non-existent. Manually separating the valuable materials creates then huge health risks for those people. [2] I don't see the "Liam" as useless PR. I believe it is quite valuable if companies are actually thinking how they can automatically dissemble the devices they have produced. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY-PEPj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY-PEPj0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM
ap46 9y ago
Will repair MacBooks for food, but for the love of god don't shred them. Just give them out at high schools or college grads. They can learn a thing or two & save BUX in the process.
- beambot 9y ago
  There are also a number of charitable organizations trying to bring computation into underserved international communities (eg. http://www.reneal.org/ http://www.reneal.org/). Please consider donating used hardware; it can have a tremendous impact on communities whose schools have (at best!) a single computer for hundreds of students.
- prodmerc 9y ago
  "Ew, it's the old version" "I'll just borrow some money and get a NEW one, which will last longer" Is what you're gonna get from those ungrateful pricks :D
hydromet 9y ago
> MacBook hard drives can be removed and replaced. This is not entirely true. The flash drive on the 2015 and 2016 Retina MacBooks are "soldered to the logic board" according to iFixit [1], [2]. What happens to the soldered-in flash drives if a logic board from one of these MacBooks fails and is swapped out by Apple under, say, AppleCare? is it desoldered and removed from the logic board, or does the entire MacBook logic board get shredded in one fell swoop? [1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown/39841 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown... [2] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown/62149 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown...
TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
It's pretty frustrating to read about older tech going to waste, instead of trying to find a new home. I imagine that there's a lot of people that'd be perfectly fine with slightly older tech, especially when the alternative is nothing. A few years back I had an online friend working at a tech recycling center, he offered to send me a slightly used laptop he'd picked up (I think it was a Thinkpad T40p?), only requesting that I pay for shipping. Even if it was a few years "outdated" by then, after installing Ubuntu it was more than enough to get me through a few years of college. He also sent a couple smartphones, which I gave away to friends and family who were in tight spots. And even managed to get me another laptop for an underclassman whose previous laptop died out and wasn't able to afford fixing or replacing it at the time. Heck, I sometimes like getting access to older tech devices too, just because it lets me try out new things. For example, among the smartphones I received there was an HTC HD2, which I believe has been one of the most hackable smartphones ever.
- kutkloon7 9y ago
  Those old thinkpads are brilliant, by the way. I also use an old one with a new SSD. Works like a brand new laptop.
captainmuon 9y ago
Note this seems to be not about independent recyclers that Apple forced to shred their products. It's rather companies that Apple specifically hired to shred products that were returned to Apple, and Apple didn't want to refurbish. While it's still a waste, it's not as outrageous as I first thought.
perlpimp 9y ago
then shenzen is antipod to apple way? this 11 days ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989
apple_shred_bnr 9y ago
From a security standpoint this makes sense. Remember GCHQ destroying the guardian laptops? There is potentially more data on these devices than is stored on _just_ the hard-drives. https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated-guardians-laptops-revealed-intended/ https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated-gua... https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop_with_top_secrets#video&t=3507 https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop...
laughfactory 9y ago
Well this is crappy, Apple. Don't you know that reuse is way better for the environment than recycling? Maybe we should point this out to them the next time they claim to care about the environment. Uh, nope, folks, you just care about the perception you care about the environment.
kylehotchkiss 9y ago
Perhaps Apple might not want used goods flowing to India (and China?) any longer as they want to begin production there and better control prices (and profits) in the market? Each iteration of their phones and laptops tends to last a little longer as even a year or two old iPhone that has been kept in a nice case could be an effectively new product for the next person after a battery upgrade.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
If Apple replaced my non-working iPhone or laptop I would absolutely want that peice of hardware shredded when it left my hands. And you should too! The reality is that it's probably not cost effective for them to pull out the storage and destroy the data in a reasonable way. However now that the apfs file system and secure enclave all but guarantee my data will not be recovered I'm okay with it being recycled.
titojankowski 9y ago
Does anybody follow the "Liam" Apple robots referred to in the article? Interesting tech, I wonder what an open source take-things-apart bot would look like. Download recipes and documents and end up with a pile of parts? More on Liam: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a-recycling-robot-apple-should-sell-screwdrivers-that-open-iphones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a-recy...
fuzzfactor 9y ago
Well a company having maximum respect for the environment would mandate a policy of maximum reuse, maximum parts harvesting, and sustainable resale channels. On a foundation of well-built long-lasting easily-repairable product. Only shredding the remainder of parts which could not possibly have their usefulness extended by anyone. Especially if there was any toxicity or energy waste in the original manufacturing process. It can be seen that the independent repairers and parts harvesters are probably performing in a more environmentally responsible way than the manufactuer. Especially from an energy balance point of view. And on a scale that's overwhelming, the repairers need relatively stronger rights toward overcoming any imbalance in their disfavor. A very strong manufacturer can afford to expend energy removing a vast parts resource from circulation, denying repairers a much larger multiple of available energy savings instead. Whenever shredding has higher priority than reuse, it could be a sign of greed or other misguided management efforts taking precedence over opportunities provided by true leadership in engineering optimization. Besides having priority over the environment in any or all locations. Who knows what other entities might also be contracting with eWaste haulers to destroy rather than resuse as many tonnes of working W7 & W8 PC's about now as a modern salvo in their maximum-waste-declaration strategy, or to further an agenda of removing all machines not having a processor with a remote management engine. From another angle it's not unlike a nation minting and shredding its own currency for its subjects as it sees fit, to control its value relative to other established currencies, with only secondary regard for the environment if that. Hmm, except it's mostly not their own currency they're shredding. Which brings us to the relative environmental cost of different underlying currencies after all . . . When you really follow the money.
valuearb 9y ago
"Rare earth" metals aren't rare. Just sayin.

185 points by bootload 9y ago

Old Apple parts are worth quite a bit. If yours is broken, part-it out. Even a Macbook Air. I was able to part-out my old Macbook air (with broken battery and power adapter) and put toward the proceeds and ~US$200 toward the latest's model: Apple just has that tight control over its parts pre- and post- use.

madaxe_again 9y ago
Indeed - 13 years ago, I had a side-line buying junk PowerBooks on eBay for very little ($100-$200), cobbling them together into perfectly working machines, and then selling them on for $1000+. I only ever tied up ~$2000 at a time, and would sell working parts I had no use for on, and even broken parts, as someone will want it, even if not for much. Never did any deep repairs, just part swapping and replacement. As an added bonus I always had a snazzy laptop, as I'd sometimes hang on to a high spec machine for a few months before selling it on. From what I can see on eBay today, it's still an eminently viable cottage industry.
pkaye 9y ago
Where do you sell an older Mac at a good price?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Ebay, I've never had any trouble disposing of old computers.

watertorock 9y ago

Sounds wasteful

dba7dba 9y ago

How Apple is known as an environmentally conscious company while [[ 1 == 1 ]]; do 1. Make products near impossible to repair. 2. Do not allow parts to be available for purchase for repair. 3. Brick product if repaired. 4. Advertise like hexx that Apple is a environmentally conscious company. done

PhantomGremlin 9y ago
What really bugs me about this is the hypocrisy. E.g. take Al Gore, self styled environmentalist, and author of books like An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. He's on the Apple Board of Directors and has been on it for many many years. He's willing to take their money, but he's also willing to look the other way when it comes to actual environmentalism, rather than the appearance thereof.
- WrtCdEvrydy 9y ago
  The truth is, no company wants the risk. All it takes is one of these recyclers to skimp out on basic drive formatting once and you get an article about how you can buy cheap macbooks and harvest them for data. Look at what happened with printers (HP's bottom line took a hit there), where you could buy a printer that had like 500,000 pages printed out of it for pennies.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    You can't basic drive format a SSD. You must shred or melt or explode to be safe.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      No, you can just issue a secure wipe command to the drive. If the firmware isn't buggy, your data will be unrecoverable.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Just write over the data. If it really took 7 overwrites to erase data, then manufacturers would be selling 7T drives instead of 1T drives.

dshi 9y ago

Kind of off topic, but: I've been trying to shred iphones and macbooks for a while now for my art. (Much like in "will it blend") I intend to work with the shredded metal/dust as a pigment. Does anyone have any pointers how to actually shred these devices?

sjg007 9y ago
Seems dangerous..
Gracana 9y ago
Maybe you could shred into small chunks first and then use a ball mill with heavy and hard media. Would be very time consuming and expensive and the result would be toxic, of course.
- rimunroe 9y ago
  Note to be careful with the grinding media too, as you really don't want sparking in a chamber filled with aluminum powder.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Eric_WVGG 9y ago
http://willitblend.com http://willitblend.com has video of shredding pretty much every iphone model.

y0ssar1an 9y ago

All those devices have user data on flash or hard disk that could be recovered. I'm glad they're shredding them.

deelowe 9y ago
They don't have to shred the whole assembly...
userbinator 9y ago
A counterargument and something to ponder: we may have lost a huge amount of history, if centuries ago people always destroyed their stone tablets/parchments/etc. thoroughly after using them.
- baobrain 9y ago
  I don't think it really matters in this case since flash degrades much faster than stone tablets. Also, I think stone tablets would be more akin to tax records or census data or great works rather than every day life of someone.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Stone tablets are more rugged than other media, but others have survived; here's an example someone else posted recently: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-time...
comstock 9y ago
I was thinking about this, but I don't really think it's a good argument. Most Apple devices can already be securely erased, many laptops can easily have hard drives removed. I think the argument only works for totally non-functional iPhones/tablets where flash recovery might be possible, but it's not possible to run the secure erase procedure.
jasonkostempski 9y ago
Maybe they should start making storage removable again.

userbinator 9y ago

I wonder how many others also have such strong negative reactions to this sort of mass destruction. It is hard to explain the feeling, but regardless of the product or manufacturer, seeing something which most certainly took a lot of effort to design and create brutally pulverised almost makes me want to cry. On the other hand, maybe a lot of other people love seeing things destroyed, as evidenced by the popularity of shredder videos on YouTube, or maybe it's interesting in the same way as car crashes and other disasters.

protomyth 9y ago
Considering hand-me-down computers are such a common thing where I am, it makes me quite angry. We often piece two or more broken computers together to give to a student.
- petecox 9y ago
  This may extend he computer's usable life but what happens to those computers once the student is done with them? In my affluent neighbourhood, computers are often dumped at the roadside. Our council does have a recycling program for e-waste but I'm not sure of the transparency of the operation in terms of what percentage ends up in landfill. I'm not condoning Apple's actions from the re-use point of view here but in the longer term, shredding computers at an industrial scale may be better for the environment than having a graveyard of 20 year old computers buried in a massive hole at the municipal tip.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    They get recycled just years later after more value is extracted out of them. We teach our students that electronics and batteries have special recycling procedures.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    I did most of my work for a couple of years on an expensive gaming rig found out by the dumpster. The RAM had been removed but everything else was still there (including a hard drive with a bunch of porn and virus). Replaced the dirty drive, new RAM and it was far better than any machine I could justify buying at the time.

comstock 9y ago

It's not totally clear to me that shreding older models of MacBooks isn't the environmental sound thing to do. Laptops have become massively more efficient and consume significantly less electricity. It some cases it must be better to take them out of use and replace them with more efficient modern replacements.

clishem 9y ago
> At some point And instead of letting the market decide when a laptop is bound for replacement, let's force people to destroy it. Of course! Makes perfect sense! Apple is doing this because newer laptops are more energy efficient! How great of Apple! Such environment, so wow!
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  The market doesn't have a great track record on environmentally friendly best practices.
- scarface74 9y ago
  The market has decided. Case 1: it was a perfectly functioning computer but the owner wanted something new. They could hand it down, donate it directly to a charity, or sell it through a company like Gazelle. I don't think I've gotten rid of a single computer in 10 years. I have 4 pre 2009 computers that I know are still in good use after installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 on them (thanks to an MSDN license). One of those four is a 2006 era Core Duo Mac Mini. The 2008 era Core 2 Duo is being used now as a Plex Server. Case 2: they were returned to Apple under warranty, Apple cleaned them up and sold them refurbished. Apple has been selling refurbished devices for over 10 years. Case 3: they weren't worth selling or refurbishing.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  There is absolutely nothing stopping people from reselling old Apple products. The market has every opportunity to work just fine. If it ended up at a recycler, it is intended to be destroyed. That's what recycling means. The plastic bottles you throw in recycling get shredded too, even though they could undoubtedly be refilled and reused.

scdoshi 9y ago

I might be missing something, but seems to me like the products are still recycled, but as raw materials, not as full devices. This makes sense, given data is almost certainly bound to be present on phones etc. Maybe there's a more nuanced way to do this, but this doesn't seem all that bad. OTOH, having these phones go through a refurb program and selling them probably involves a fair amount or resource use as well.

clishem 9y ago
Forcing recyclers to shred perfectly fine phone components makes sense because data is bound to be present 'etc'. My "Hacker" "News" moment of the day.
- Tanegashima 9y ago
  Who said they are "perfectly fine"? Also, it's not up to you, the costumer decided to deliver the device for recycling and not for scrap.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Reusing is more efficient than recycling can ever be. The resources used to refurb and resell are a tiny fraction of those required to go from raw material (recycled or mined) to a new phone. As far as data goes, soft tools will stop anyone but the NSA. If you're worried about the NSA you don't toss your phone in a collection box. Yes, you are missing something.
arthurcolle 9y ago
> Maybe there's a more nuanced way to do this, but this doesn't seem all that bad. Like removing the flash storage first, maybe...?
- throwanem 9y ago
  With all the human labor that'd take, you'd pay more for refurb than for new.

therealmarv 9y ago

For people who don't understand that: In countries outside USA/western world we reuse things and repair things if they are still usable. Shredding ALWAYS and calling your company GREEN is a LIE (to the Earth and customers) and PR joke @Apple.

Osmose 9y ago
I mean, this happens in the USA as well. Here in Portland we have Free Geek[1], which rebuilds computers from donations and gives them to community volunteers who help recycle them in the first place. Anecdotally, the reuse part of recycling was pretty heavily emphasized when I was in school being taught about the importance of recycling. [1] http://www.freegeek.org/ http://www.freegeek.org/
eridius 9y ago
If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore. The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Usable devices should be re-used; if it's being recycled, there must be a reason. And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other people. And doing a full quality assurance pass on every single component is not something that recyclers can really do. Apple doesn't want its users to end up with devices that have faulty parts, and the only real way to do that is to require the recyclers to actually destroy the devices instead of salvaging them. Also, I find it really strange that the article expressly mentions that hard drives are shredded. Of course they're shredded! You don't want any risk at all of someone else recovering data off of those things. Plus the whole quality issue as mentioned above.
- cmdrfred 9y ago
  >The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Some people will accept lower quality at a dramatically lower price. I'm one of them, I buy used and broken items and repair them. That's the free market at work. Apple would prefer that I buy a new product from them thus this policy. Now I have no problem with this policy if that's what they wish, but you can't have it and scream about how "green" you are in the same breath.

internet2000 9y ago

People are acting like they're shredding last year's iPhone models. Apple products have great resell value and they're passed on as hand-me-downs often. If something got back to Apple, chances are reusing parts is not plausible. Not much you can harvest from an iPhone 3G other than the raw materials.

gravypod 9y ago
Some would strongly disagree that these phones don't have use. One great example is this: https://rfcx.org/ https://rfcx.org/ These phones are only cheap because the consumer market is giving them away (high supply). That makes them very good for specific applications and given the presense of complex sensors, battery backup, and small form factor you have a very attractive package for potentially important use cases. That's also just setting asside the idea that someone might want to use these pieces. Some third world countries may benifit from a huge influx of cheap technology every year.
- nathancahill 9y ago
  Very cool link. I'm going to see if they are working in Guatemala, or if there's something similar being done there. Illegal land invasions in the national parks are a huge problem, but it's less of a detection issue and more of an enforcement/corruption issue.
wmf 9y ago
I can imagine that quite a few broken phones get recycled even though 90% of the parts are still usable.
- internet2000 9y ago
  That doesn't seem likely. The most common failure points for iPhones are cracked screens, worn out batteries and broken home buttons, all of which Apple can repair. If it's something stronger like water damage, the electronics can't be relied on to be reused.

miguelrochefort 9y ago

I have found 10 fully-functional MacBook Pros (2009-2012) in my building's electronic recycling bin. I imagine that's fairly common. One of those (MacBook Pro 2012 13" Core i7 2.9GHz 8GB RAM) became my main computer. It's sad to think it would have been shredded had I not saved it.

quasse 9y ago
My laptops for the last 7 years now have all been ones I found in the trash or recycling bins. I've had two macbooks, and HP with an i7, and a decent Acer. The stuff people trash is mind boggling, it's like they lose all powers of rational thought when it comes to valuing used electronics. A few hours of effort for $250+ on Ebay? Nah, trash it!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sandworm101 9y ago

It may sound odd, but this is standard practice in most "recycling" environments. When you recycle an aluminium can it doesn't get refilled. It gets melted into new aluminium. Even if the can is perfectly good and could be sanitized, to ensure constant quality it is best to start anew from the fundamental ingredients. Seeing a macbook shredded looks horrible, but if those bits are being properly recycled into new components then I can see apple's point. Rebuilding from the ground up is probably much easier than picking and testing every little component to ensure quality. If you own a car, it has steel parts. Some of that steel is recycled metal from old cars. We consider it new. But would you be willing to pay the same price for a car with a chassis harvested from an older car? What level of testing would be needed for you to pay the same price as the car with a chassis built anew? If that testing costs more than a couple hundred, the logical thing is to melt.

afuchs 9y ago
Old cars are often used to source parts for the repair of other cars. It's common practice, which has persisted without any major problems. Likewise, 3rd-party repair shops will often harvest parts from old phones, to replace parts in phones they are repairing. Picking and testing components doesn't appear to be a problem for them. Their customers seem to have no issue with recycled parts being used to repair their phones. If there is demand for recycled parts, and they can be reused while still ensuring quality, what is the problem?
- sandworm101 9y ago
  But apple doesn't want to sell used or refurbished phones, only shiny new ones.
  - ginko 9y ago
    It's none of Apple's business what people are doing with their phones after they bought them.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Apple sells a ton of refurbished phones and Macs. I have one.

csense 9y ago

I've never bought an Apple product in my life. This article makes me feel good about that decision.

scarface74 9y ago
So I assume you buy Android phones from companies that don't keep their devices updated with the latest OS basically forcing you to buy a new phone if you want the latest OS/security patches. Apple has traditional supported iOS devices for at least 3-4 years with OS updates. My old first generation iPad 2010 can still get older versions of current apps from the App Store.
- sitkack 9y ago
  Only when those apps haven't been pulled. Try and buy some of those apps from a fresh account. Not possible. One can literally not install GoodReader on an Ipad1 at this point.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Yes the app creator can pull an app or not allow older versions to be downloaded. In my case, I came across my old iPad recently, reset it and was able to install Hulu, Netflix, Crackle, Google Drive, Plex, Spotify,and the CW app Edit: I was also able to download Apple's productivity apps -Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
    - sitkack 9y ago
      You are lucky. There is a neat workaround for getting old apps onto an old IPad. 1) you can gift from one ipad to another, 2) you can install the older app if you have bought the newer version but it wouldn't install. I did this for a friend who bought an ipad but couldn't get Goodreader (no longer recommend) to install because they pulled the version that works on IPad1. I think companies should be required to release the encryption keys or provide a way to install software on devices that are EoL. So many IPads got "recycled" that could have been put to better use. I think Goodreader could do the world a great service by selling a version that installs on first gen IPads, they make pretty good budget ereaders for pdf content.

apinstein 9y ago

A majority of comments here seem to think that literally millions of units of electronics are being shredded wastefully, instead of more meaningfully re-used. Ok, great! This is HN! Where are the calls to start a company to leverage this near-infinite supply of valuable trash through economically productive re-use? Should be very profitable, right? Another distinct possibility is that the proportion of valuable items in this stream is too small to warrant their recovery. There are already tons of people that refurb and sell computers. It's a small market, and increasing the supply by 100x (or whatever the multiple of "wasted" recycling opportunities is) would likely distort that market into total collapse.

ChuckMcM 9y ago
I take it you're being facetious. The referenced article discusses some of the contractual language that Apple uses to hinder re-use, and they aren't the only ones. The real risk of course are unscrupulous vendors who sell as 'new' things they have recovered either on Ebay or Amazon which turns around and bites the original manufacturer because the customer complains their parts are bad. Having dealt with many of the major recycling centers in the bay area, and the resellers, and the various people in between, the maze of laws and contracts make unwinding this nearly impractical in most cases. It is pretty amazing when someone is willing to sneak a $250,000 mini-computer to you out the back of the building because the corporate "requirements" are that a perfectly serviced and operating machine be sent to shredding rather than do anything else. Of course you really can't make a business off their largess but a number of important computer systems were saved in similar ways. Generally there is often more value to the manufacturer that they not be recycled and so we end up with these sorts of contracts.
qb45 9y ago
> A majority of comments here seem to think that literally millions of units of electronics are being shredded wastefully, instead of more meaningfully re-used. Ok, great! This is HN! Where are the calls to start a company to leverage this near-infinite supply of valuable trash through economically productive re-use? Should be very profitable, right? There are already companies doing it. TFA talks about iThings collected by Apple themselves whose recycling Apple outsourced to others under the condition that everything will be teared down to raw materials. Have a look here for some real recycling action: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 edit: Hell, it's right there in TFA: "Electronics recyclers are filled with heaps of broken iMacs and MacBooks, which due to economics and the requirements of certifications are most often scrapped rather than repaired or sold," John Bumstead, a refurbisher who sells MacBooks that he salvages and frankensteins together from broken ones that he gets from recyclers that don't work with Apple, told me. In trying to source MacBooks to repair, Bumstead says he's been turned away countless times by recyclers who say they can't sell him Apple products. So yeah, the question is not whether recycling itself is profitable or not. The problem is that Apple apparently has sufficient profit margins that to them recycling is less profitable than shredding the old iGadgets to raw materials and reforging them into the latest shiny. Especially if it's done in China where the resulting pollution doesn't affect them as much.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

Perhaps I am jaded a bit on Apple, just a little, but this sounds like they want to control the entire lifecycle of their products. They want to design, manufacturer, sell, repair, and recycle. This seems basic vertical integration 101.

Tanegashima 9y ago
Infowars.com
- sctb 9y ago
  Please stop commenting unsubstantively. http://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

victornomad 9y ago

One day I entered in one of the labs in a previous company and found a few piles of "old" macbooks pro ready to trash. I would say easily around 500' They seemed quite new to me so I asked if I could get a bunch and reuse parts to make a working one. They told me I could get all I wanted. So I took 10. I arrived home and all of them were functional after formating and reinstalling. My family and friends got very happy with seminew laptops for free. I guess is not only about recycling or shredding, is as well about giving a second, third or fourth life to our goods... And lets be honest. Recycling is a very wasteful process. If we want to be eco friendly we should consume less, thats the only way.

adrianN 9y ago
There is a reason "recycle" comes last in "reduce, reuse, recycle". But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse.
- pg314 9y ago
  > But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse. That 'the invisible hand' (by which I assume you mean the free market) prevents reuse is simply not true. In a competitive free market you would have companies that would specialise in reuse. For Apple's products that is exactly what happens: there are actually quite a few companies selling refurbished second hand Apple products (e.g. [1] and [2]), including Apple itself [3]. Of course, regulation sometimes gets in the way: India's prime minister Modi is preventing Apple from selling second hand iPhones in India in an attempt to get them to start producing products in India. The free market has many short-comings. Preventing reuse is not one of them. [1] https://leapp.be/nl https://leapp.be/nl [2] https://www.forza-refurbished.be/?gclid=CNb63IaEutMCFSEG0wodTKQIyw https://www.forza-refurbished.be/?gclid=CNb63IaEutMCFSEG0wod... [3] https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac [4] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/tim-cook-keen-to-sell-indians-second-hand-iphones-at-lower-rates-but-pm-modi-says-make-in-india/articleshow/52368862.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/tim-cook-k...

Tanegashima 9y ago

These devices are sold by the users to Apple for recycling, Apple can't do anything with them besides recycling. Nothing to see here, conspiracy theorists.

mankash666 9y ago

Anyone still remember the video of a recycling machine Apple showed off at WWDC a few years back? Turns out it was all PR

jpalomaki 9y ago
I checked, the video[1] does not say that the components are being re-used. It talks about the materials. At some point there was some articles about how the e-waste ends up in poor countries where human labor is cheap and workers rights non-existent. Manually separating the valuable materials creates then huge health risks for those people. [2] I don't see the "Liam" as useless PR. I believe it is quite valuable if companies are actually thinking how they can automatically dissemble the devices they have produced. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY-PEPj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY-PEPj0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM

ap46 9y ago

Will repair MacBooks for food, but for the love of god don't shred them. Just give them out at high schools or college grads. They can learn a thing or two & save BUX in the process.

beambot 9y ago
There are also a number of charitable organizations trying to bring computation into underserved international communities (eg. http://www.reneal.org/ http://www.reneal.org/). Please consider donating used hardware; it can have a tremendous impact on communities whose schools have (at best!) a single computer for hundreds of students.
prodmerc 9y ago
"Ew, it's the old version" "I'll just borrow some money and get a NEW one, which will last longer" Is what you're gonna get from those ungrateful pricks :D

hydromet 9y ago

> MacBook hard drives can be removed and replaced. This is not entirely true. The flash drive on the 2015 and 2016 Retina MacBooks are "soldered to the logic board" according to iFixit [1], [2]. What happens to the soldered-in flash drives if a logic board from one of these MacBooks fails and is swapped out by Apple under, say, AppleCare? is it desoldered and removed from the logic board, or does the entire MacBook logic board get shredded in one fell swoop? [1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown/39841 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown... [2] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown/62149 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown...

TheAceOfHearts 9y ago

It's pretty frustrating to read about older tech going to waste, instead of trying to find a new home. I imagine that there's a lot of people that'd be perfectly fine with slightly older tech, especially when the alternative is nothing. A few years back I had an online friend working at a tech recycling center, he offered to send me a slightly used laptop he'd picked up (I think it was a Thinkpad T40p?), only requesting that I pay for shipping. Even if it was a few years "outdated" by then, after installing Ubuntu it was more than enough to get me through a few years of college. He also sent a couple smartphones, which I gave away to friends and family who were in tight spots. And even managed to get me another laptop for an underclassman whose previous laptop died out and wasn't able to afford fixing or replacing it at the time. Heck, I sometimes like getting access to older tech devices too, just because it lets me try out new things. For example, among the smartphones I received there was an HTC HD2, which I believe has been one of the most hackable smartphones ever.

kutkloon7 9y ago
Those old thinkpads are brilliant, by the way. I also use an old one with a new SSD. Works like a brand new laptop.

captainmuon 9y ago

Note this seems to be not about independent recyclers that Apple forced to shred their products. It's rather companies that Apple specifically hired to shred products that were returned to Apple, and Apple didn't want to refurbish. While it's still a waste, it's not as outrageous as I first thought.

perlpimp 9y ago

then shenzen is antipod to apple way? this 11 days ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989

apple_shred_bnr 9y ago

From a security standpoint this makes sense. Remember GCHQ destroying the guardian laptops? There is potentially more data on these devices than is stored on _just_ the hard-drives. https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated-guardians-laptops-revealed-intended/ https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated-gua... https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop_with_top_secrets#video&t=3507 https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop...

laughfactory 9y ago

Well this is crappy, Apple. Don't you know that reuse is way better for the environment than recycling? Maybe we should point this out to them the next time they claim to care about the environment. Uh, nope, folks, you just care about the perception you care about the environment.

kylehotchkiss 9y ago

Perhaps Apple might not want used goods flowing to India (and China?) any longer as they want to begin production there and better control prices (and profits) in the market? Each iteration of their phones and laptops tends to last a little longer as even a year or two old iPhone that has been kept in a nice case could be an effectively new product for the next person after a battery upgrade.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

If Apple replaced my non-working iPhone or laptop I would absolutely want that peice of hardware shredded when it left my hands. And you should too! The reality is that it's probably not cost effective for them to pull out the storage and destroy the data in a reasonable way. However now that the apfs file system and secure enclave all but guarantee my data will not be recovered I'm okay with it being recycled.

titojankowski 9y ago

Does anybody follow the "Liam" Apple robots referred to in the article? Interesting tech, I wonder what an open source take-things-apart bot would look like. Download recipes and documents and end up with a pile of parts? More on Liam: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a-recycling-robot-apple-should-sell-screwdrivers-that-open-iphones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a-recy...

fuzzfactor 9y ago

Well a company having maximum respect for the environment would mandate a policy of maximum reuse, maximum parts harvesting, and sustainable resale channels. On a foundation of well-built long-lasting easily-repairable product. Only shredding the remainder of parts which could not possibly have their usefulness extended by anyone. Especially if there was any toxicity or energy waste in the original manufacturing process. It can be seen that the independent repairers and parts harvesters are probably performing in a more environmentally responsible way than the manufactuer. Especially from an energy balance point of view. And on a scale that's overwhelming, the repairers need relatively stronger rights toward overcoming any imbalance in their disfavor. A very strong manufacturer can afford to expend energy removing a vast parts resource from circulation, denying repairers a much larger multiple of available energy savings instead. Whenever shredding has higher priority than reuse, it could be a sign of greed or other misguided management efforts taking precedence over opportunities provided by true leadership in engineering optimization. Besides having priority over the environment in any or all locations. Who knows what other entities might also be contracting with eWaste haulers to destroy rather than resuse as many tonnes of working W7 & W8 PC's about now as a modern salvo in their maximum-waste-declaration strategy, or to further an agenda of removing all machines not having a processor with a remote management engine. From another angle it's not unlike a nation minting and shredding its own currency for its subjects as it sees fit, to control its value relative to other established currencies, with only secondary regard for the environment if that. Hmm, except it's mostly not their own currency they're shredding. Which brings us to the relative environmental cost of different underlying currencies after all . . . When you really follow the money.

valuearb 9y ago

"Rare earth" metals aren't rare. Just sayin.