I mean, this happens in the USA as well. Here in Portland we have Free Geek[1], which rebuilds computers from donations and gives them to community volunteers who help recycle them in the first place.
Anecdotally, the reuse part of recycling was pretty heavily emphasized when I was in school being taught about the importance of recycling.
If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore.
The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Usable devices should be re-used; if it's being recycled, there must be a reason. And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other people. And doing a full quality assurance pass on every single component is not something that recyclers can really do. Apple doesn't want its users to end up with devices that have faulty parts, and the only real way to do that is to require the recyclers to actually destroy the devices instead of salvaging them.
Also, I find it really strange that the article expressly mentions that hard drives are shredded. Of course they're shredded! You don't want any risk at all of someone else recovering data off of those things. Plus the whole quality issue as mentioned above.
>The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue.
Some people will accept lower quality at a dramatically lower price. I'm one of them, I buy used and broken items and repair them. That's the free market at work. Apple would prefer that I buy a new product from them thus this policy.
Now I have no problem with this policy if that's what they wish, but you can't have it and scream about how "green" you are in the same breath.
> Apple would prefer that I buy a new product from them thus this policy.
That makes no sense. You can buy used Apple devices from many places, and even Apple themselves sells refurbished devices. This move has nothing to do whatsoever with trying to prevent the purchase of used devices.
> If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore.
Because reselling old electronics involves finding buyers, which is not a zero-effort endeavor. Or maybe you're a company that is replacing a fleet of devices with upgraded models, and it will literally cost you more money in paid staff time to sell it than it will to just hand it off to a recycler.
> And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other people.
Why not? Plenty of people buy old cars that haven't undergone an exhaustive QA pass. They run fine; some people even repair them themselves.
Because reselling old electronics involves finding buyers, which is not a zero-effort endeavor. Or maybe you're a company that is replacing a fleet of devices with upgraded models, and it will literally cost you more money in paid staff time to sell it than it will to just hand it off to a recycler.
Gazelle makes that real easy.
As far as used cars, some of the major metro areas require you to get an emissions test to renew your tag. If the check engine light comes on or the OBD signals certain errors you can't renew.
I tend to agree that in the US we're particularly bad about replacing things rather than repairing them. We're also bad about inventing, marketing, selling & buying products that trade convenience for waste in the first place. It's certainly not black and white though, these behaviors are global, and plenty of Americans care and try to reuse before recycling.
> Shredding ALWAYS and calling your company GREEN is a LIE (to the Earth and customers) and PR joke @Apple.
While always shredding is a bit unfortunate, this seems a little hyperbolic to me. Shredding for recycling is still recycling. It's worse than re-use and better than landfill. Lots and lots and lots of companies use the landfill, and Apple is certainly greener than that.
It'd be worth examining the recycling efficiency too, which is getting better every year. Apple's aiming for many parts to be manufactured with 100% recycled material. Not there yet, but if that were true, then what is the waste from shredding vs re-use? There's energy, which could come from renewable sources. What else?
Apple refurbishes and re-sells devices that pass testing.
Devices that don't pass testing it always recycles. It's unclear if it's method of recycling is the best or not, because this article is one-sided and vague.
Shredding ALWAYS and calling your company GREEN is a LIE (to the Earth and customers) and PR joke @Apple.