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.
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.