[scdoshi]

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]

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]

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]

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]

> 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]

With all the human labor that'd take, you'd pay more for refurb than for new.

[arthurcolle]

I find it highly unlikely that human labor is necessarily required to remove the backplate of an iPhone, remove flash storage and recycle the rest. But let me know if I'm wrong - the entire example is extremely contrived in any case.

[throwanem]

It'd be a hell of an expensive robot, and probably not all that reliable - more complex than "Liam", what with the masked hot-air rework requirement, and even that was just an ad that never actually got built. And that assumes you only need the one kind of robot, which is a bit optimistic given that sizes, shapes, internal configurations, and assembly methods tend to differ among iPhone versions. You might need several expensive robots. (And have you seen what it takes to tear down an iPhone? It is not a simple process! Special tools are required, and I don't just mean for getting the unicorn screws out.)

In any case, you'll pay much more for a refurb that's helping cover cost of the considerable labor involved in that kind of rework, whether it's expensively done by humans or done by expensive robots. With that kind of production cost, and especially with a huge upfront automation investment to amortize, it's going to be a struggle to keep the prices of refurbs from exceeding those of new product, and at that point it's no longer economical. The whole point of buying refurb is to get the same product for less money, or more product for the same money, as you'd get buying new. If you can't sell refurb at that kind of price point without taking a loss, you may as well not bother.

[tinus_hn]

If only there were a way to encrypt the flash storage and then throw away the key.. Alas, one can dream.