Boo! Hiss! What will happen to Apple and Tim Cook if people start trying to fix AirPods by themselves?
Think of Apple, man!
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AirPods Repairability Project Adds USB-C Port and 3D-Printed Casing
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Boo! Hiss! What will happen to Apple and Tim Cook if people start trying to fix AirPods by themselves?
Think of Apple, man!
Saying this over and over again doesn't make it true. Apple will take back products for "recycling", but many of the components in those products are non-recyclable and will still wind up in landfills. Extending the life of products (through repair) and using products that are not damaging to the environment in the initial manufacturing process are far, far more impactful to the environment than recycling.
Ask, saying the above over and over again doesn’t make it true either. Can you cite which components are not recycled? Can 100% of every manufactured product be recycled? Does competitors have more repair ability in a way that really moves the needle. When a product is repaired, does the repaired component get recycled or thrown in the garbage?
You said it right!
And precisely because not everything can be recycled, making devices more repairable generates less e-waste, since you won't throw a whole device away.
Instead of having e.g, 50% of the device being throw away, it's much better to simply for the environment replace a defective component.
How do you feel about lithium batteries, especially in EV that can’t be 100% recycled. How do the devices hold up after repair? How do the devices hold up to abuse?
The poster quoted here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-and-3d-printed-casing.2351789/post-31272143 was pontificating. To which I responded and the. You responded here with the comment about a Rolex watch. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-and-3d-printed-casing.2351789/post-31272150
I feel just like you: that they are harmful to the environment, but the lesser evil. The new device will not only use the same lithium batteries, but use lithium batteries AND other non-recyclable resources (as you pointed out yourself). So, why not go for the lesser evil and just use the resource you need.
Just as you pointed out, lithium batteries can be partially recycled, which is why just repairing what you need is much less harmful.
Choices are made. Use the environment wisely. There is no one size fits all. And a good hard to repair product that lasts years later is better than a mediocre repairable product that lasts less than its “non-recycled” counterpart. (I know the preceding is hyperbolic)
You're suggesting that a repairable product will be inferior, which is not the case. For example, the AirPods with the replaced batteries don't have an inferior sound quality to stock AirPods.
Also, what choices are made if the consumer can't choose to replace the devices they bought with their own pockets?
We are told we own those physical devices, but truth is that when they're designed to be thrown away, having them works like an evil "rent tax", which must be paid at the end of the product lifespan. And when too many products are throwable, this not only increase the cost of living, but also increases e-waste at an exponential pace. Imagine if you had to throw ALL your electronics away every 3-4 years because they are designed to be disposable. It doesn't cut it.
This is a solution to a problem that does not exist. Saying "AirPods are pad because they can't be repaired" is naive. It's not that they *can't* be repaired, but that it would be *inefficient* to do so. Making devices repairable requires rather large setup and labor costs, plus would require the devices themselves to be larger and more expensive to manufacture.
I don't have data (obviously) but I would wager the extra manufacturing time (power usage, fossil fuels, etc.) and materials used (more plastic, more tiny screws, etc.) required in making a "repairable" AirPods case would be more harmful to the environment than throwing away ones that break. Not to mention the cost of setting up a spare parts supply chain and shipping broken devices around to get repaired. This is almost certainly even more true of the actual earbuds themselves.
It's also worth remembering that they're all going to be thrown away eventually even if you fix them. We're only really talking about reducing the waste of ones that are thrown away *early* because they stopped working sooner than expected.
It is more efficient and overall better for the environment to replace a broken AirPods case than it would be to repair it.
TL;DR: If devices are small enough and complex enough, it is often *more* environmentally friendly to make them disposable than it would be to make them somehow repairable.
I don't have data (obviously) but I would wager the extra manufacturing time (power usage, fossil fuels, etc.) and materials used (more plastic, more tiny screws, etc.) required in making a "repairable" AirPods case would be more harmful to the environment than throwing away ones that break. Not to mention the cost of setting up a spare parts supply chain and shipping broken devices around to get repaired. This is almost certainly even more true of the actual earbuds themselves.
It's also worth remembering that they're all going to be thrown away eventually even if you fix them. We're only really talking about reducing the waste of ones that are thrown away *early* because they stopped working sooner than expected.
It is more efficient and overall better for the environment to replace a broken AirPods case than it would be to repair it.
TL;DR: If devices are small enough and complex enough, it is often *more* environmentally friendly to make them disposable than it would be to make them somehow repairable.
I fail to see how Apple can't design a product that's easier to open and have its battery replaced. E.g, if Wacom can design active styluses that can have replaceable AAA batteries, so can Apple.
But if Apple can't design AirPods that can't efficiently be repaired, then how about we advocate against them and use wired headphones, or high-quality wired earbuds, which will last for years, since they have proven to be incompetent?
Interesting project. In the future Apple will most probably shift all their devices to USB C.
Did you know you can say things about Apple without bringing in the competition? Why is is always a thing where if someone else does it worse then it's ok for Apple to keep on doing what it's doing?
I'm suggesting a repairable product could be inferior. Inferior is a completely subjective opinion.
A repaired airpod, with a sample size of 1, could be a fire hazard and less durable.
Many smaller consumer oriented electronic devices are not repairable.
Do you rent the device? When you buy a car do you do it blindly? I would think consumers make a choice as opposed to einy-meeny-miny-mo.
Then vote with your $$$ and send a message.
Baloney. One can get a $15 set of lightning earpods and have them forever. Those who can affort $xxx for expensive bluetooth headsets are not increasing the cost of living nor contributing to e-waste due to the many recycling programs both by apple and governmental agencies.
Sorry, the above is nonsense. The conversation is revolving around consumer oriented, small form factor lithium battery powered electronic devices.
Do you know that many companies are trying to be carbon neutral, environmental friendly and green? Apple is being singled out without being objective, in fact many of the critical posts seem they are more emotional...forget the facts. So it's useful to know what the benchmarks are and what the competition is doing. Apple could be light years ahead of the competition, but the ones that lay the claims don't back it up with data.
We're on an Apple forum, under a post about Apple's product where people were talking about Apple's practices and how Apple could improve.
Where exactly does the competition fit in that? Or is it only fair when Apple is singled out when they do something good? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
So basically instead of a factual response to some of the pertinent (imo) discussion points, the answer is “this is an apple forum and you can’t have your cake and eat it too “?
The initial response was to a non-factual critique of apple which was on-topic. Unless you can prove that apple is not doing at least some fair job in reclamation, don’t call them out because your wet finger in the air says so.
Apple will recycle its products you as a private individual will send to them. Hate to burst your bubble as someone who worked in ITAD for over a decade, big corporate customers and local cities/counties are NOT sending their fleet devices back to Apple.
They go downstream to an ITAD facility where they are either
A. Wiped and resold which becoming increasingly harder to do.
B. Locked devices are sent to developing countries to be flashed/wiped/sold as parts
C. Shredded
YMMV depending on the facility.
At one I worked at for a couple years, they used to just send locked iphones to a buyer in the Middle East who would flash and do some other work on them to get the unlocked.
He'd come by once a month and just buy en masse every locked device.
Couple of points: 1. for fleet devices the corporation has to determine the best course of action. Individuals have no standing. 2. It still sounds Xs like a best effort is made to not dump the devices directly into the Hudson River. 3. This is far off the much beaten and path of this thread where a poster without any proof threw unproved statements regarding apples recycling efforts.
Sending a half working iPhone to Keyna for parts and having the rest dumped into a burn pit is about the same as dumping into the Hudson River.
Well blame the corporations not apple. Having said that 50% recycling is better than 0%.
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