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>Apple and the Environment Hilarious section for an expensive product that has a non removable battery and is going to end up in a landfill after a year or two
by kfprt 5y ago
>Apple and the Environment
Hilarious section for an expensive product that has a non removable battery and is going to end up in a landfill after a year or two of use.
- m_ke 5y agoYeah my airpods died after like a year and a half of use. When my brand new M1 macbook air died after a month of use I took it to the apple store and the "genius" next to me told someone with dead airpods that it's normal and that they have to buy a replacement pod.
- kfprt 5y agoLandfill as a Service^TM. Apple is truly a very dirty company.
- skinnymuch 5y agoYeah I got AppleCare for AirPods because I was told they just replace it completely vs only replacing the battery. And I’ve heard the battery will not keep up high capacity if you use it daily a lot as I do
- zxcvgm 5y agoSeems like PodSwap have figured out how to replace the batteries without butchering them. (I’m not affiliated nor used them.) https://www.thepodswap.com/ https://www.thepodswap.com/
- kfprt 5y agoTaking what used to be free (replacing batteries in your remote/phone/device) and turning it into a service. Now that's innovation!
- acdha 5y agoA year or two seems implausibly low but I would also compare this with the competition. For example, I have some great AKG headphones (over-ear, wired) which cost more even before adjusting for inflation — the audio quality is absolutely stellar but all of the plastic started falling apart after a couple of years. I've replaced the covers over the ears but now the non-replaceable cable shroud and padding on the crossbar are disintegrating, too. They probably weigh 10 times more than a pair of AirPods so I'm not sure what the total landfill impact ends up like. I am 100% certain that we will need to have regulation requiring manufacturers to recycle dead products if we want to move the needle at all. I'd also be utterly shocked if AirPods were even 0.1% of the total landfill volume generated by the average buyer over that period — higher for certain trace metals but still, this seems like a newer spin on “I don't even own a TV”.
- kfprt 5y agoVolume seems like the wrong metric when airpods are full of batteries and electronics which are very resource and energy intensive. Energy production cost would be better. With the AKG headphones you could repair them if you felt like it. Apple doesn't let you choose. A good pair of headphones could last decades while the glued in battery in the airpods gives it a definite lifespan.
- thrashh 5y agoThat isn’t the only competition though. I have a lot of headphones and my favorite pair hasn’t fallen apart in 10 years.
- acdha 5y agoSure, my previous ones lasted a long time, too. My point was simply that there's a weird trend to talk about this as an Apple thing rather than the global trend across most industries it actually is.
- summm 5y agoWell, because apple either started those practices or at least was the main responsible to popularize it.
- acdha 5y agoThat's a pretty big claim to just toss out without any supporting evidence. I have plenty of discarded electronics going back to the 90s saying this trend wasn't started by Apple and since my Apple devices have tended to last longer than average I'd really want to see the details of your analysis.
- babypuncher 5y agoI appreciate the concern, but the waste generated by a pair of AirPods for 1-2 years of use seems like nothing compared to all the plastic bottles the average American goes through in a week.
- kfprt 5y agoSize can be deceiving when you don't factor in the materials used. Electronics are full of silicon and rare earths which have a far greater impact than even a bunch of bottles.
- Tagbert 5y agoSilicon is almost inert chemically. Rare earths are not particularly toxic. If you are concerned, you can drop your dead AirPods off at an Apple store and they will recycle some of the materials.
- a-r-t 5y agoYou can bring them back to an Apple Store or ship them back to Apple for recycling [1]. I dropped off a few old devices and batteries at my local Apple Store - it's very easy, especially now that they often have an employee standing outside of the store, just hand it to them and go about your day. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/30/how-to-sell-recycle-airpods/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/30/how-to-sell-recycle-airpods/
- kfprt 5y agoDo they recycle or send to a landfill? Does recycling mean sending it to a 3rd world country where it's smelted down in backyard shops giving everyone in the area cancer? Of the 3 R's recycle comes last. If we could upgrade and repair our devices it would go a long way to cutting down on ewaste.
- criddell 5y agoThey recycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bu-gl7v-P8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bu-gl7v-P8
- kfprt 5y agoThat was 'a stunt' which 'makes no economic sense' https://www.ifixit.com/News/15794/apple-daisy-cobalt-recycling https://www.ifixit.com/News/15794/apple-daisy-cobalt-recycli...
- criddell 5y agoI like the iFixit people, but that article is pretty bad. One of the reasons this list as a failure is this: > People aren’t giving Apple back their phones, because old iPhones are worth dramatically more on the used market than the material cost Would they really rather see people recycling rather than reusing? Also, why would it have to make economic sense? Sometimes companies do things because it's the right thing to do.
- 5y ago
- nojito 5y agoHow much waste is in an AirPod compared to literally anything else plastic?