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by mikeatlas 595 days ago
they offer free recycling of old hardware https://www.apple.com/shop/open/free_recycling when you buy new hw

see also https://www.apple.com/me/recycling/

2 comments

There is a reason that the old saying is "reduce, reuse, recycle". The effectiveness is in that order: reduce consumption, reuse what you have, and recycle what you can no longer use.

There is a very straightforward opportunity here for Apple to enable "reuse". They absolutely should be doing that.

Can you name an example of an AIO (or laptop) usable as a display?
I can't even name one other than an iMac that I would want to use. The whole reason to want to use the older 27" 5k iMac is that it's an incredible display. Better than you can buy, other than the 27" Apple Studio Display.
This video describes one: https://youtu.be/UJrdKKmb9tQ
I hope they also plant one or two small trees somewhere! And promote the use of refillable water botles on campus!!
Not sure if you're kidding, but around 2014 on campus we all got reusable water bottles, and I still of course have mine, as they're useful (and less wasteful).
[facepalm]
I hope more companies start recycling their own products. It makes me sad to see so much valuable electronics, so many "totalled" cars just thrown away on the same heap as other rubbish (and old cars respectively). Such a waste of resources is surpassed only by war.
Consumer electronics have a negative recycling value - the raw materials are worth significantly less than the extraction cost (in both financial and carbon terms), making recycling nothing but environmental theatre. If electronics manufacturers actually care about sustainability, they must extend the working life of the product by designing for longevity, repair and reuse.

Apple have a very mixed track record in this respect. iMacs used to work as an external monitor when the in-built computer became obsolete, but that feature has been removed. Most components in an iPhone are locked to that device, preventing their re-use as spare parts. Apple computers are almost entirely non-upgradeable, greatly limiting their potential useful lifespan.

Recycling electronics basically means crushing them and extracting some of the minerals inside. A lot of them can't really be recovered, and of course all the electricity that was used to create it is still gone and the water used is still tainted.

If you make electronics you should be forced to do everything humanly possible to extend its useful life.

I mean, yeah. This but unironically.