[jraph]

In a world where sourcing materials and building computer parts that cannot be recycled has such a high environmental and societal cost, no, I can't find any way of seeing this as acceptable.

We should not let the market and consumers preference decide on this. We need informed, resonnable and thoughful decisions. If it leads to laptops a bit more heavy and thick but less wasteful, so be it. Convenience cannot be demanded at any cost. Anyway, repairable is convenient.

[Shivetya]

We do not know the failure rates so making judgements of its sustainability are hampered and cannot just rely on "I want the option" as a counter to how a product is designed.

By your logic why stop at laptops, why not demand tablets and even smart watches be treated the same. the reason is simple really, the reliability of these devices is very good and companies like Apple have highly developed processes in place to recycle the failures they do encounter.

we would never survive in a world were consumer electronics were lego like in their manufacturing. you think we have waste issues now, it is far more likely a laptop or desktop would be recycled than individual components which when failed many would just toss like they toss one use batteries found in many devices.

[jraph]

Well, there is a middle ground between completely unrepairable and completely lego like. Nobody needs to glue the keyboard to the battery and the speakers in a laptop. My laptop is fine. Changing the battery is especially common, they wear fast. And Apple has shown that it did glue an unreliable keyboard to components that didn't need to be thrown away.

As for tablets, you can change the screen or the battery on an iPad 2 for instance - though not easily -, and its form factor was perfectly fine. A bit thicker would not make it horrible so I am sure it is also possible to design a repairable tablet and I think Fairphone proved that it is possible for phones too (although the Fairphone seems a bit thick, granted).

As for smartwatches, I'd argue that while there are valid use cases for them, most people certainly don't need them, so it should not be a big concern. Almost everybody has a phone now, and people who really want to wear the time on their arm can get a regular watch that will last decades instead of a smartwatch. We don't need to carry two computers 24-7. I hope this market is niche and remains niche. But I certainly can imagine that you don't need to glue the battery to the screen in a smartwatch neither anyway.

[esmi]

You can’t dump a laptop in a blue bin but you can recycle it. You can also resell or get a trade-in credit from Apple.

https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/

[jraph]

Isn't this bullshit?

Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and MacBooks - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-ip...

Anyway, the best waste is the one that does not exist, recycling should be last resort since it's often far from perfect and costly too. So we should reduce the amount of things we need to recycle in the first place. As for computer parts, I cannot see how it can be efficient.

Reusing working stuff is good though, obviously.

[esmi]

The article is from 2017 and references data from 2016 and 2012. In 2018 Apple announced it stepped up its recycling efforts but I don’t know how things have changed and I haven’t read the full environmental report.

Apple forces recyclers to shred because they determined those devices are not fit for resale and they don’t want recyclers reselling them, like they said they would in the article. This happens to 1/3 of trade-ins, see link below.

https://www.apple.com/environment/

[jraph]

You are implying that an article that is only two years old is too old, precising that you don't know if things have changed (thank you for your honesty by the way).

Apple forces recyclers to shred perfectly good hardware indiscriminately, against their will, so it does not hurt Apple's bottom line. When you are the richest company in the world, surely you can do better. There is no excuse.

I cannot take Apple's own 2 MB, 55 request loading marketing material about environment as a reliable source.

[esmi]

> You are implying that an article that is only two years old is too old,

No. I’m stating that policy changed after this article was published, who knows maybe it was in response to this article, so the facts may have changed. The age of the article is not relevant I was just showing the timeline.

> Apple forces recyclers to shred perfectly good hardware indiscriminately

Says the recyclers. Apple says they are not perfectly good hardware, otherwise they would have refurbished it themselves. I also believe Apple maximizes profit which is why I believe if it was reliably repairable, they would have done it. A refurbishment unit has to fetch more than a recycled unit.

[jraph]

>> You are implying that an article that is only two years old is too old,

> No. I’m stating that policy changed after this article was published, who knows maybe it was in response to this article, so the facts may have changed

Ok, that was a more charitable and likely interpretation of your message. A bit of bad faith unfortunately slipped in my last comment. Sorry for that.

[gumby]

In Palo Alto you can.

I looked at how to recycle of my old Color laser printer and the instructions on PA’s web site were to out it into the blue bin. They show GP this on the sides of some of the trucks too. I did so (almost completely filled the bin and weighed a ton) but they took it without a qualm.