With Earth Day approaching, Apple is bragging about their “free” iPhone recycling program—you can bring your device in and trade it in for a discount on a new iPhone, if it’s eligible. Or if it’s not, they’ll take back and recycle your iPhone without charging you.
The timing of this brag is pretty ironic: Bloomberg Businessweek reported yesterday on an investigation into Apple’s contract recycler GEEP, which was required in its first few years to shred 530,000 iPhones, 25,000 iPads, and 19,000 Watches. As it turns out, GEEP didn’t abide completely by the terms of this contract—they were accused in a 2020 lawsuit of failing to recycle (i.e., repairing and reselling) nearly 100,000 of these Apple products. But then Apple essentially seems to have forgotten about the lawsuit, for unknown reasons.
Bloomberg closed the report by quoting iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens:
“If consumers knew the volume of quality products that were being destroyed every day, they would be shocked,” Wiens says. As for the GEEP workers who stole and resold iPhones, he says, “I would argue that they were doing God’s work.”
Regardless, Apple’s bragging about a “free” recycling program is pretty rich. Sure, great. They won’t charge you to recover the gold and aluminum and other valuable materials inside your phone. Nevermind that pretty much every electronics recycler in the world (and we’ve got a list of hundreds of them) would be happy to take your phone for “free.” After all, it’s pretty lucrative for them—in 2022, recyclers recovered $28 billion of metals from e-waste. With more recycling, that could rise as high as $91 billion. Plus, Apple’s program is pretty transparently aimed at getting you to upgrade your phone to a new one, which means its net result is almost certainly going to be more electronics consumption.
But focusing on recycling at all really misses the point of a more sustainable approach to electronics. Electronics recycling is a sad end for an electronic device.
New data from the UN shows that, when it comes to solving the burden that making and using electronics places on the planet, recycling isn’t the answer—it’s the last resort. When you weigh the benefits of current electronics recycling practices against their costs to human health and the environment, UN researchers found, it’s a net loss of $37 billion USD. E-waste management practices result in emission of lead, mercury, and greenhouse gas emissions. Plastic waste gets released into the environment.
Formal e-waste recycling practices typically have fewer of these negative effects than informal practices, but shredding mixed materials can be hazardous and have serious emissions consequences even in well-managed facilities.
Of the 13.8 billion kg of e-waste collected each year, we lose 7.8 billion kg of material (including 1 billion kg of metal). That means more than half of what gets recycled is lost.
Rare earth elements are present in every single electronic device you own. Recycling meets just 1% of the demand for them.
The UN estimates that the collection and management of e-waste results in $78 billion of annual harm to human health and the environment—nearly 3x the value of metals recovered.
Greenhouse gas emissions from electronic devices and e-waste increased by 53% between 2014 and 2020—and continue to grow.
Recycling e-waste is better than landfilling it, no doubt. We need better collection, better collaboration between formal and informal recycling programs, and better methods of getting valuable materials out of e-waste.
A shredder in a Canadian e-waste recycling facility. A lot of the hazards of e-waste recycling come when shredding goes awry—if devices get shredded with scrap metal. If batteries accidentally end up in a shredder, they can ignite and light the whole facility on fire. E-waste facility fires tend to be extremely toxic burns.
Still, when it comes to doing right by the planet, we’re all far better off not taking Apple up on their offer to trade in our phones. Keeping our phones one year longer is the carbon emissions reduction equivalent of taking 636,000 cars off the road.
Fighting for more repairable stuff helps boost the effectiveness of recycling, too. The things that make repair easier—designs with easily openable cases and easily replaceable batteries—also make recycling more efficient. That’s why California recyclers say the passage of Right to Repair is a “game changer.”
The executive summary of the UN e-waste report closes with this killer mic drop:
Repair and refurbishment should be supported, and smarter designs developed, to extend the lifetime of EEE. The easiest solution for all e-waste issues is still not to generate any e-waste in the first place.
— The Global E-waste Monitor 2024
This Earth Day, if you want to do something good for the environment, don’t take Apple up on their “free” recycling offer. Repair your old phone instead.
Yes! Apples direction is to please it’s stockholders, not create a sustainable planet! 🌍 So the stockholders will be long dead like the rest of us!
Let’s fix this before it’s too late! Products need to be designed using the least different materials and they need to be physically or chemically (cheaply) taken apart!
Next the device needs to be assembled in a way so it’s repairable, no independent part that is replaceable should cost more than 10% of the cost of the device and assemblies no more than 25% with rare exceptions! Batteries and major assemblies need incentives to recover and/or refurbish to be reused when it makes sense.
While hard to see, we are now nearing the apex of technical possibilities! That is, 3nm is about the limit within a single logic plane and building 3D logic that is complex is still many years away and it won’t change what 75% of us need for daily use. Refining the tech is all there really is, just look at a refrigerator it hasn’t changed in 40 years and lasts a lot longer!
One way to extend the life of phones is big batteries. I have a Moto G Power with a 5 Amp hour (5000 milliAhr) battery that will easily last for 2 days even with heavy use, 3 in light use. So, when the battery has deteriorated to 50% capacity, it will still easily last a whole day without recharging. I'd like to find an app that will stop charging at 80%- keeping your battery between 20 & 80% charge will extend its life.
Ref the comment above, refrigerators HAVE changed in the last 40 years- they're a LOT more efficient now.
Knock out the complimentary fact first: there’s legitimate concern in data retention for shredding. The file system is encrypted, but not the whole drive and not memory etc.
That out of the way… it would be nice if Apple spent a few minutes with each phone. The rest of the phone can be reused.
In fact, ideally on a working phone, they replace the main board and battery and slap it back together.
But, how to sell it. Refurbished? New? And keep in mind just l like DIY opening it up, hurts environmental protection, water, dust ++
There’s proof to ability in commercial used parts too. Not just us consumers fixing stuff. Nintendo fixed the Famicom in Japan well into the 2000s with a mix of NOS and mostly used parts.
iFixit might consider an article—perhaps a series of articles—comparing the efficacy of various recycling programs.
Here in my area of the US, office supply chain Staples seems to have a better recycling policy than big-box store Best Buy. There's also a local shop that claims to offer "free recycling"; apparently, it consists of little more than removing a few parts and discarding the rest.
6 Comments
Yes! Apples direction is to please it’s stockholders, not create a sustainable planet! 🌍 So the stockholders will be long dead like the rest of us!
Let’s fix this before it’s too late! Products need to be designed using the least different materials and they need to be physically or chemically (cheaply) taken apart!
Next the device needs to be assembled in a way so it’s repairable, no independent part that is replaceable should cost more than 10% of the cost of the device and assemblies no more than 25% with rare exceptions! Batteries and major assemblies need incentives to recover and/or refurbish to be reused when it makes sense.
While hard to see, we are now nearing the apex of technical possibilities! That is, 3nm is about the limit within a single logic plane and building 3D logic that is complex is still many years away and it won’t change what 75% of us need for daily use. Refining the tech is all there really is, just look at a refrigerator it hasn’t changed in 40 years and lasts a lot longer!
Dan - Reply
One way to extend the life of phones is big batteries. I have a Moto G Power with a 5 Amp hour (5000 milliAhr) battery that will easily last for 2 days even with heavy use, 3 in light use. So, when the battery has deteriorated to 50% capacity, it will still easily last a whole day without recharging. I'd like to find an app that will stop charging at 80%- keeping your battery between 20 & 80% charge will extend its life.
Ref the comment above, refrigerators HAVE changed in the last 40 years- they're a LOT more efficient now.
Bob Fankhauser - Reply
There’s a lot to this; iPhone shredding.
Knock out the complimentary fact first: there’s legitimate concern in data retention for shredding. The file system is encrypted, but not the whole drive and not memory etc.
That out of the way… it would be nice if Apple spent a few minutes with each phone. The rest of the phone can be reused.
In fact, ideally on a working phone, they replace the main board and battery and slap it back together.
But, how to sell it. Refurbished? New? And keep in mind just l like DIY opening it up, hurts environmental protection, water, dust ++
There’s proof to ability in commercial used parts too. Not just us consumers fixing stuff. Nintendo fixed the Famicom in Japan well into the 2000s with a mix of NOS and mostly used parts.
John clark - Reply
iFixit might consider an article—perhaps a series of articles—comparing the efficacy of various recycling programs.
Here in my area of the US, office supply chain Staples seems to have a better recycling policy than big-box store Best Buy. There's also a local shop that claims to offer "free recycling"; apparently, it consists of little more than removing a few parts and discarding the rest.
Brian - Reply
Don’t be so quick to dismiss those free recycling boxes at non-chain stores. Many are handled by skilled scrappers.
Not always, but often these no-name drops for tech have the highest level of recycling.
John clark -