| From that page: > If your device isn’t eligible for credit, we’ll recycle it for free. Per https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... (2017, so it might have changed since): > Apple rejects current industry best practices by forcing the recyclers it works with to shred iPhones and MacBooks so they cannot be repaired or reused—instead, they are turned into tiny shards of metal and glass. > "Materials are manually and mechanically disassembled and shredded into commodity-sized fractions of metals, plastics, and glass," John Yeider, Apple's recycling program manager, wrote under a heading called "Takeback Program Report" in a 2013 report to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. "All hard drives are shredded in confetti-sized pieces. The pieces are then sorted into commodities grade materials. After sorting, the materials are sold and used for production stock in new products. No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale." Recycling is not a good thing: it is an expensive and intensive industrial process. Recycling is a last resort: if you have to make new stuff then sure, recycle, but it's better to avoid making new stuff by (a) not needing stuff in the first place, and (b) maintaining and repairing old stuff for as long as possible. Whatever happened to “reduce” and “reuse”? |
It sounds like that's exactly what Apple is doing though?
>> If your device isn’t eligible for credit, we’ll recycle it for free.
If they can, they will resell the device. But a 5+ year old phone with a busted screen and dead battery is just trash. There is nothing to do but recycle it.