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Yea, maybe they have helped but I don't think they are doing as much as they could do for the planet. I wish they would do more so their products are as close t

Yea, maybe they have helped but I don't think they are doing as much as they could do for the planet. I wish they would do more so their products are as close to 100% recyclable as possible. Their relenting push towards upgrades for-profit can't be good for the planet.

ricardobeat 7y ago
Apple is the only mobile device company I know of that has a recycling program, and builds hardware free of most common pollutants / toxic substances; they’ve built machinery specifically to disassemble their phones. If the other top two vendors would just achieve the same, we’d be in a much more comfortable position.
- juliushuijnk 7y ago
  https://www.fairphone.com https://www.fairphone.com For those who don't know them.
  - ricardobeat 7y ago
    That sounds very nice, but there are scarce details on what makes them environmentally responsible, no mention of arsenic-free or mercury-free displays for example. I imagine it’s hard to affect any change to upstream suppliers when you don’t have volume.
stupidcar 7y ago
Why I agree smartphones should be recyclable, I'm not sure it's important in the larger scheme of things. A phone is a very small item, relatively speaking and even at its height, the upgrade cycle was only once every 12 months. Now consider the sheer volume of trash — paper, plastic, foil, fumes, food, etc. — many individuals and organisations throw out every day. It essentially defies comprehension, but it's a lot. So much that's we've created an incredible reverse supply-chain to get it all out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible, with the result that we rarely stop to think just how much crap we're all generating. Set against this, people throwing out a tiny electronic item, even an item containing some nasty toxic stuff inside it, is a very small problem. Smartphones are novel and make for a high-profile target, but the real problem is the more mundane avalanche of detritus that accompanies modern civilisation.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >Set against this, people throwing out a tiny electronic item, even an item containing some nasty toxic stuff inside it, is a very small problem. It's a very large problem. In the 2017 fiscal year, Apple sold 216.76 million iPhones. Now factor in all the other manufacturers, and all the other years. Remember each one usually comes with a charging plug, a cable, some sort of earbuds, excessive showy packaging... >At present, approx. 4–5% of world production of gold, silver and copper, as well as even up to 20% of world production of palladium and cobalt, are currently used for their production https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/gospo.2016.32.issue-4/gospo-2016-0037/gospo-2016-0037.pdf https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/gospo.2016.32.issue-... That is in regards to smartphones in 2013, it's almost certainly higher now. In a random smarphone you are likely to find most, if not all, of the following: opper, nickel, silver, gold, platinum group metals, cobalt, lithium, lead, tin, zinc, rare earth metals, gallium, indium, iron, chromium, niobium, tantalum, titanium. I've been thinking about electroinc waste a lot lately and I'm starting to think it is the reason why the universe is so quiet. Species don't destroy themselves in wars, I think they have development cycles similar to us where in a century or two they burn through a massive amount of their resources. They burn fossil fuels and negatively change their environment, they create plastics and negatively change their environments, they largely deplete the elements they require to make advanced technologies and end up with landfills full of personal electronic deices before they reach a point where they are mining asteroids and starting interstellar travel to continue to have adequate resources for general construction and manufacturing of technology.
jdietrich 7y ago
>I wish they would do more so their products are as close to 100% recyclable as possible. Recyclability fundamentally does not matter. If we eventually run out of aluminium or cobalt or whatever else, we can use landfills as mineral mines when that becomes economically viable. What we really need to care about right now is CO2 emissions; in that respect, smartphones represent exceptionally good value. Including the energy used to charge it, an iPhone Xs results in 70kg of CO2 emissions over its lifespan. The average American produces 16,500kg of CO2 per year. A smartphone feels like it should be really bad for the environment, because it's expensive and shiny and new. It actually does less damage to the environment than half a tank of gasoline or a few meaty meals. Turning down your thermostat by 2 degrees feels insignificant, but it could save as much as 1,000kg of CO2 per year. https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_XS_PER_sept2018.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > we can use landfills as mineral mines when that becomes economically viable. Is economics really the primary obstacle standing in the way of "mining" landfills? I've never been to one, but just trying to imagine it, I'd would be a hell of a lot more worried about diseases, toxins, and all the other awful stuff that ends up in landfills one way or another and that would stand in the way of separating the materials you want effectively/efficiently/cleanly/etc... the economics seem like the last concern.
  - holy_city 7y ago
    Economically viable in this sense would mean when it is cheaper to mine from landfills than otherwise. That incorporates safety costs to do it.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      My question was, do you not see bigger obstacles than money?

ricardobeat 7y ago

Apple is the only mobile device company I know of that has a recycling program, and builds hardware free of most common pollutants / toxic substances; they’ve built machinery specifically to disassemble their phones. If the other top two vendors would just achieve the same, we’d be in a much more comfortable position.

juliushuijnk 7y ago
https://www.fairphone.com https://www.fairphone.com For those who don't know them.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  That sounds very nice, but there are scarce details on what makes them environmentally responsible, no mention of arsenic-free or mercury-free displays for example. I imagine it’s hard to affect any change to upstream suppliers when you don’t have volume.

stupidcar 7y ago

Why I agree smartphones should be recyclable, I'm not sure it's important in the larger scheme of things. A phone is a very small item, relatively speaking and even at its height, the upgrade cycle was only once every 12 months. Now consider the sheer volume of trash — paper, plastic, foil, fumes, food, etc. — many individuals and organisations throw out every day. It essentially defies comprehension, but it's a lot. So much that's we've created an incredible reverse supply-chain to get it all out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible, with the result that we rarely stop to think just how much crap we're all generating. Set against this, people throwing out a tiny electronic item, even an item containing some nasty toxic stuff inside it, is a very small problem. Smartphones are novel and make for a high-profile target, but the real problem is the more mundane avalanche of detritus that accompanies modern civilisation.

ryanmercer 7y ago
>Set against this, people throwing out a tiny electronic item, even an item containing some nasty toxic stuff inside it, is a very small problem. It's a very large problem. In the 2017 fiscal year, Apple sold 216.76 million iPhones. Now factor in all the other manufacturers, and all the other years. Remember each one usually comes with a charging plug, a cable, some sort of earbuds, excessive showy packaging... >At present, approx. 4–5% of world production of gold, silver and copper, as well as even up to 20% of world production of palladium and cobalt, are currently used for their production https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/gospo.2016.32.issue-4/gospo-2016-0037/gospo-2016-0037.pdf https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/gospo.2016.32.issue-... That is in regards to smartphones in 2013, it's almost certainly higher now. In a random smarphone you are likely to find most, if not all, of the following: opper, nickel, silver, gold, platinum group metals, cobalt, lithium, lead, tin, zinc, rare earth metals, gallium, indium, iron, chromium, niobium, tantalum, titanium. I've been thinking about electroinc waste a lot lately and I'm starting to think it is the reason why the universe is so quiet. Species don't destroy themselves in wars, I think they have development cycles similar to us where in a century or two they burn through a massive amount of their resources. They burn fossil fuels and negatively change their environment, they create plastics and negatively change their environments, they largely deplete the elements they require to make advanced technologies and end up with landfills full of personal electronic deices before they reach a point where they are mining asteroids and starting interstellar travel to continue to have adequate resources for general construction and manufacturing of technology.

jdietrich 7y ago

>I wish they would do more so their products are as close to 100% recyclable as possible. Recyclability fundamentally does not matter. If we eventually run out of aluminium or cobalt or whatever else, we can use landfills as mineral mines when that becomes economically viable. What we really need to care about right now is CO2 emissions; in that respect, smartphones represent exceptionally good value. Including the energy used to charge it, an iPhone Xs results in 70kg of CO2 emissions over its lifespan. The average American produces 16,500kg of CO2 per year. A smartphone feels like it should be really bad for the environment, because it's expensive and shiny and new. It actually does less damage to the environment than half a tank of gasoline or a few meaty meals. Turning down your thermostat by 2 degrees feels insignificant, but it could save as much as 1,000kg of CO2 per year. https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_XS_PER_sept2018.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

mehrdadn 7y ago
> we can use landfills as mineral mines when that becomes economically viable. Is economics really the primary obstacle standing in the way of "mining" landfills? I've never been to one, but just trying to imagine it, I'd would be a hell of a lot more worried about diseases, toxins, and all the other awful stuff that ends up in landfills one way or another and that would stand in the way of separating the materials you want effectively/efficiently/cleanly/etc... the economics seem like the last concern.
- holy_city 7y ago
  Economically viable in this sense would mean when it is cheaper to mine from landfills than otherwise. That incorporates safety costs to do it.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    My question was, do you not see bigger obstacles than money?