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I'm not inclined to consider the article as especially authoritative. It is mostly echoes from blog posts collected into a story. …guidelines were developed wi

by jws 14y ago

I'm not inclined to consider the article as especially authoritative. It is mostly echoes from blog posts collected into a story. …guidelines were developed with Apple's input… In what year? Half a decade ago? A decade? You can not simultaneously innovate better manufacturing and make things the same old way. People need to stop being in a glue tizzy. I'm sure that in a recycling context the glue can be undone with either heat or a chisel. And remember that Apple has a plan in place to replace those batteries. I suspect the story we are not seeing is that EPEAT is not willing to update the standard fast enough to adapt to modern manufacturing. And they probably shouldn't. Apple will be secretive until release, and EPEAT should take some time to think about things. Those just aren't going to work together.

georgemcbay 14y ago
"I'm sure that in a recycling context the glue can be undone with either heat or a chisel." Every decision impacting recycling has to be viewed with labor costs factored in. Virtually every recycling victory we've seen in the corporate sector in the past decade or two is due to efforts to make the recycling process cheap enough that the loss is negligible (and in the best cases, recycling is even profitable). Nobody is saying that gluing things together makes them completely unrecyclable, but that glue could easily be the difference between a recycling company actually recycling parts vs throwing them in the landfill due to increased costs blowing the economics of recycling out of whack (if cost of recycling is significantly larger than cost of throwing item in the landfill, the item is almost certainly going in the landfill). This is exactly the situation EPEAT was set up (as mentioned, with Apple's input) to watchdog over, and Apple is clearly now putting spectacular hardware design above any green/recycling factors. Whether or not that is a terrible thing is a personal choice to make, but you seem kind of fanboyish in your efforts to pretend like Apple's decision is somehow EPEAT's fault. Accept that you prefer computers that are now actively non-recyclable and move on.
- jws 14y ago
  That's 40 cents worth of scrap aluminum. I'm not seeing a plausible argument for labor rates making it landfill.
  - ars 14y ago
    It's far too dangerous to put either heat or a chisel anywhere near a Lithium ion battery. So, yes, it's completely unrecyclable.
    - jws 14y ago
      Depending on the chemistry lithium ion batteries are safe to up to 400°F or more. Surely the manufacturing engineers pick a thermo adhesive with a melting point between the maximum operating temperature and the maximum safe storage temperature. Think about the iPad 2 screen glue. Glass glued in place, but a hair dryer is more than enough heat to release the glue.
      - ars 14y ago
        "Depending on the chemistry" is not a valid answer when recycling something - they don't have time to lookup the specs of each battery. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safety_concerns http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safet... says maximum temperature of 265°F, which is very very close to the temperature needed to melt the glue (250°F, for low temperature glues, and 380F for high temperature glue - which is very close to even your 400° number.)
ktizo 14y ago
I'm sure that in a recycling context the glue can be undone with either heat or a chisel. So, your proposed recycling solution is to attack a glued on lithium battery with heat and/or a chisel. Can we film you doing this for charity or something? I suspect the story we are not seeing is that EPEAT is not willing to update the standard fast enough to adapt to modern manufacturing. Ummm... I suspect the story that we are seeing is that you have no idea whatsoever about modern manufacturing and are just making shit up to try and defend a position of personal dogma.

by jws 14y ago

georgemcbay 14y ago

"I'm sure that in a recycling context the glue can be undone with either heat or a chisel." Every decision impacting recycling has to be viewed with labor costs factored in. Virtually every recycling victory we've seen in the corporate sector in the past decade or two is due to efforts to make the recycling process cheap enough that the loss is negligible (and in the best cases, recycling is even profitable). Nobody is saying that gluing things together makes them completely unrecyclable, but that glue could easily be the difference between a recycling company actually recycling parts vs throwing them in the landfill due to increased costs blowing the economics of recycling out of whack (if cost of recycling is significantly larger than cost of throwing item in the landfill, the item is almost certainly going in the landfill). This is exactly the situation EPEAT was set up (as mentioned, with Apple's input) to watchdog over, and Apple is clearly now putting spectacular hardware design above any green/recycling factors. Whether or not that is a terrible thing is a personal choice to make, but you seem kind of fanboyish in your efforts to pretend like Apple's decision is somehow EPEAT's fault. Accept that you prefer computers that are now actively non-recyclable and move on.

jws 14y ago
That's 40 cents worth of scrap aluminum. I'm not seeing a plausible argument for labor rates making it landfill.
- ars 14y ago
  It's far too dangerous to put either heat or a chisel anywhere near a Lithium ion battery. So, yes, it's completely unrecyclable.
  - jws 14y ago
    Depending on the chemistry lithium ion batteries are safe to up to 400°F or more. Surely the manufacturing engineers pick a thermo adhesive with a melting point between the maximum operating temperature and the maximum safe storage temperature. Think about the iPad 2 screen glue. Glass glued in place, but a hair dryer is more than enough heat to release the glue.
    - ars 14y ago
      "Depending on the chemistry" is not a valid answer when recycling something - they don't have time to lookup the specs of each battery. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safety_concerns http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safet... says maximum temperature of 265°F, which is very very close to the temperature needed to melt the glue (250°F, for low temperature glues, and 380F for high temperature glue - which is very close to even your 400° number.)

ktizo 14y ago

I'm sure that in a recycling context the glue can be undone with either heat or a chisel. So, your proposed recycling solution is to attack a glued on lithium battery with heat and/or a chisel. Can we film you doing this for charity or something? I suspect the story we are not seeing is that EPEAT is not willing to update the standard fast enough to adapt to modern manufacturing. Ummm... I suspect the story that we are seeing is that you have no idea whatsoever about modern manufacturing and are just making shit up to try and defend a position of personal dogma.