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AirPods Are Disposable and Hard to Recycle (2016)
- auggierose 8y agothat's from 2016
- markstos 8y agoAnd with the popularity of the product, the environmental concerns of the unrepairability are even greater and more relevant today.
- oceanswave 8y agoAhh to be back in the 90’s where our only environmental concerns were 9v, AA and D-cell batteries
- greedo 8y agoCRT tubes, Asbestos, Dioxin, yeah, the last decades of the 20th Century were just great.
- johannsg 8y agoI admit that I know next to nothing about hardware engineering, but I can’t fathom how it would be possible to continue to miniaturize consumer products at scale while maintaining durability, quality and keeping them repair friendly? Would love some one with the right background to explain how they would design an AirPod like device that could be fixed by your average repair professional/shop/dealer/etc (let alone me at home). Recyclability is a concern though!
- hra5th 8y agoI find it hard to imagine that a product which lasts 2 years and is smaller than a shot glass can be much of an environmental concern. I would have to throw away 10000 pairs of airpods to match the volume in a landfill of throwing out a single TV. Similarly, 10000 pairs of airpods use about as much raw materials as that single TV. This just seems like the wrong battle to fight
- bigj0n 8y agoAnd who repairs flatscreen TVs? A very small percentage of the market
- dang 8y agoThanks! Added.
- _bxg1 8y agoI respect iFixit's ideals, but this is just ridiculous. Highlighting the lack of repairability in a MacBook Pro is one thing, but AirPods are a marvel of compact engineering. There's barely room for the battery; there is positively no room in there to replace glue with clips or screws so that a few tinkerers can try to fix them at home. Plus, you can replace just the earbuds or the case on its own (it's unlikely you'll break both at the same time) for ~$60.
- aarpmcgee 8y agoAirPods being a technological marvel does not negate the fact that its disposable nature is a pretty big problem. As far as I am concerned, if the environmental cost of the existence of a product is not factored in to its design, it should not exist. This may be a bit of a stretch, but on the same token, K-Cups being super convenient does not negative the fact that they are an ecological nightmare.
- _bxg1 8y agoWhat I'm saying is there's probably no reasonable way, given the current state of the art, to create an equivalent product in a more repairable form. The comparison to k-cups seems overblown, as a person throws away a couple of those a day, whereas AirPods are quality devices (of a similar size) that will last years at the minimum.
- _bxg1 8y agoiFixit rightly makes noise about the pointless unrepairability of some other Apple devices, but this one just feels like they're reaching.
- maxerickson 8y agoGasoline weighs about 6 pounds a gallon. It's made from the same stuff as plastic. Landfills aren't perfect, but they aren't an ecological nightmare and there's lots of room for them outside of places like New York City.
- biglenny 8y agoNot to mention, they look like shit, cookie cutter shit.
- cafebabbe 8y agoAlso, they make you look so dumb. Wearing-Q-Tips-and-being- proud-of-it-dumb. About 8.5 on the Google Glass Index. 9.5 if you wear them while riding electric monocycles.
- berbec 8y ago11 if you wear them with the dont-lose-it-strap https://www.amazon.com/Spigen-AirPods-Pending-Connector-Airpods/dp/B01LVZ4SXN https://www.amazon.com/Spigen-AirPods-Pending-Connector-Airp...
- eugeniub 8y agoThis is highly subjective. Almost no one in the real world is obsessed with how "dumb" a pair of wireless earbuds looks.
- beatgammit 8y agoAre you sure? Aesthetics is a huge part of the success of a product. A lot of wireless earbuds are much larger, and thus AirPods are much more desirable (they look less stupid). People absolutely buy mostly based on aesthetics, provided the functionality is reasonable. In fact, I argue that this is why most people buy Apple products...
- askafriend 8y agoThis is just stupid. Just take AirPods to an Apple store in any corner of the world or simply ship directly to them to recycle almost any product. https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in iFixIt is just disingenuous in that they have a fixed view of what’s acceptable and it highly favors their own business. Their content parades as an objective viewpoint but isn’t by a longshot.
- benatkin 8y agoIsn’t the environmental impact lowered by how expensive it is? By getting AirPods they’re likely to spend less on other stuff that has a higher environmental impact, like plane tickets, right?
- ianai 8y agoThat feels wrong. For one, the environmental cost of goods/services are not reflected in their prices, currently. Further, AirPods are luxury goods. Purchasers are probably already high carbon users.
- eugeniub 8y agoThe average Western European/North American consumes 220 pounds of plastic per year. A pair of AirPods (0.016 pounds) are 0.007% of that figure. I think there are much bigger categories in our plastic consumption that we might want to target before AirPods.
- jeffbax 8y agoLove my AirPods, but if they can't even get a battery replacement that's a huge downside. As for disposal, like any electronic apple will at the minimum help recycle them for you (as will others like best buy) We definitely have new problems like k cups but our electronics tend to be much smaller than those of old. More people are Marie Kondoing too. Just think of all the waste we are avoiding just by virtue of digital games, music, books,and movies. There's still hope to be had, though we need to REDUCE across the board.
- perrohunter 8y agoI don’t like the narrative of ifixit, you cannot have this tiny a device and have it build with bolts and screws. I’d like to know if there’s any competitor on this category (Samsung galaxy buds, pixel buds) that doesn’t have the same problem. Besides, no battery can last forever, they all degrade, that’s how the current tech works unfortunately. I do want Apple to offer cheaper battery replacement, right now replacing the battery of the AirPods and case equals to a brand new set of AirPods.
- Melchira 8y agoiFixit has done a teardown of Samsung galaxy buds and rates them more favorably than AirPods: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown/120693 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown...