Apple
Sorting of debris before shredding at the ECS Refining plant in the suburbs of Dallas. Photo: ECS Refining
Apple positions itself as a responsible company that takes care of the environment and recycles the parts. At the same time, the corporation is fighting irreconcilably with third-party repair shops and private engineers who are invading Apple’s food chain. Unscrupulous entrepreneurs are repairing technology, selecting Apple customers, preventing the sale of new components, new smartphones and laptops. The company believes that its own equipment has the right to repair only itself. Only in the company center will the user receive the proper quality of service, whether he wants it or not.
Now it turned out that these two principles – the declaration of nature protection and control over its components for the sake of money – came into conflict. The money was won.
Just two days ago, Apple published the Environmental Responsibility Report – a report on outstanding efforts to recycle waste and protect the environment. The company repeatedly disseminated PR materials about what innovations it uses for this. For example, it allegedly collects old iPhones and iPads that return to stores, parses them, melts individual components and melts about 30 milligrams of gold from each phone, which eventually corresponds to 1 ton of gold. None of this article is true.
In another story, Apple talked about the special robot Liam, which is able to disassemble 1.2 million “iPhones” per year. Also pure PR.
And the latest fairy tale from Apple appeared just in the last report of the Environmental Responsibility Report. There, the firm announced a plan to produce the iPhone entirely from recycled materials, such as aluminum, copper, tin and tungsten. True, this time the company honestly confessed that it has no idea how to implement such a plan: “We did something that we rarely do: we announced the goal before we fully figured out how to achieve it,” said Lisa Jackson ( Lisa Jackson), Apple’s vice president for environmental protection and social policy. Well, at least some part of the truth.
The reality is far from these marketing tales.
In reality, the vast majority of Apple’s technology is recycled to other companies that specialize in processing, and Apple pays them for that. She has to pay, because the law obliges the company to process electronic garbage in the volume in which it sells it. How many namusoryl – so much and cleaned behind him. Similar legislation is in force in many other countries. It is not necessary to dispose of your own smartphones, you can collect any electronics from other companies, the main thing is to observe the proportions by volume.
The edition of the Motherboard on request under the Freedom of Information Act, received documents that Point to the true practices of processing old Apple hardware. They convincingly show that Apple explicitly prohibits contractors from using the most environmentally safe methods of processing. Apple requires the technique to be completely crushed . In no case can not extract individual components, warns Apple. “No reuse. No resale, “says the report for the Michigan Environmental Quality Department.
Documents from Missouri, North Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Oklahoma, Washington, Michigan and Wisconsin say one thing And the same – everywhere Apple requires processing companies to crush equipment, not allowing to save electronic garbage and even more to reuse some separate parts.
It follows from documents that Apple works with three national garbage recycling companies USA is SIMS Recycling Solutions, ECS Refining and Metech Recycling. In addition, Apple has contracts with Dynamic Recycling and Advanced Technology Recycling to collect electronic garbage for further processing by other companies. A separate agreement with the company Call2recycle for processing old batteries that Apple collects in its branded stores. Since all these firms operate under contract with Apple, the latter can set conditions for them under processing conditions.
Even when Apple phones are sent to the trash, Apple retains control over them. And not only over their phones. Let us emphasize once again, these draconian recycling rules apply not only to Apple’s technique, but to all garbage collected according to its order in accordance with the obligations for the recycling of electronics. For example, here’s what’s collected for Apple in the state of Illinois:
Most of them are TVs, printers, monitors and computers. All this should be crushed into crumbs, it is forbidden to get accessories. Workers at the factory are manually crushing expensive “retinas” that cost hundreds of dollars even in a broken state.
Such a hypocritical concern for the environment – only in words and in press releases .
The same policy is with other producers. In words, they care about nature, but in reality they think only of profit.
