Apple offers free recycling of its products worldwide

Apple is offering to recycle its products for free worldwide, and has included even third-party products like mobile phones and PCs in the program in some countries.

The company said on its redesigned environmental responsibility page that Apple retail stores will take back Apple products for “free, responsible recycling.”

A spokesman for Apple confirmed Monday that the program would be available worldwide.

The announcement ahead of Earth Day on Tuesday offers store gift cards, if the old product is found to be reusable, for use against new purchases at Apple online and physical stores. If the product cannot be reused, Apple will recycle it at no cost to the user.

There are variations by country, but at the bare minimum every Apple retail store will take back Apple products for free and responsible recycling

PCworld

How nice of apple to take the trash and recycle it for the mother earth, not only their trash but they also take other brands pc and displays.

Under the new program, the company is offering, depending on the country, to also recycle Apple batteries besides mobile phones and even computers and displays from other vendors at no cost to the users.

Or could it be that apple wants to free themselves on the rare metal domain of china by recycling the components keeping the supply in the house?

Rare earth metals are absolutely critical to modern life. Fiber optic communications require erbium. Neodymium is a critical component in modern permanent magnets. Without a steady supply of rare earth metals, we would find ourselves in some difficulty, and things may get even more critical in the future—quantum memory may lie in the hands of praseodymium.

Despite this need for rare earth metals, pretty much the entire supply comes from one country: China. In 2010, politicians finally noticed this, as China started restricting its export. In response, a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been investigating our ability to recycle rare earth metals.

Rare earth recycling: Is it worth it?

Recycling of these metals is not easy as they are around 1% or less of the mass of the electronics making it not easy to recover them.

Rare such as yttrium, neodymium, niobium, and dysprosium are required for powerful magnets. These small but extremely strong magnets are required for common appliances including refrigerators, cell phones, and engines of all types. However, because they are only present in trace amounts (less than 1%) in these products, it is extremely difficult to recycle these appliances with the intention of recovering REEs

MIT

But it can be done and at the moment China have a monopoly on the mining of these minerals, its not a consideration of if china will raise more the price, its about when they are going to stop exporting them. I don't think apple is a company that do things out of good will or for the nature, they are starting to cover their backs for the eventual time when China starts to exert their control over the supply, it may take a loss now by recycling but in the end it may pay off.

What you think fellow members, Apple conspiracy to survive Chinese yoke or good nature of the company to help the world?

originally posted by: Indigent
What you think fellow members, Apple conspiracy to survive Chinese yoke or good nature of the company to help the world?

Get back user personal information on devices.

a reply to: candlestick

I think if you use internet they already got that, its all over the cloud now days

originally posted by: Indigent
a reply to: candlestick

I think if you use internet they already got that, its all over the cloud now days

But not all ,if they get back the old version iphone ,they can open it to see which part most easy to break.etc

I dislike cloud.

a reply to: Indigent

Don't a lot of other people/recycling services already offer free recycling for phones and other electronics? I've never had a problem recycling my phones in the past (between my whole family, we've have recycled at least three or four phones in the past several years).

I know here in the U.S., "Staples" and "Best Buy" stores offer free recycling of cell phones and electronics.

www.bestbuy.com...

Staples - recycling and eco services


Some larger cities (such as New York City) also already offer free cell phone and electronics recycling:

www.nyc.gov...


Here are some phone other recyclers. This one pays you for recycling your phone (some lesser phones net you very little money):

Gazelle.com

This one donates the proceeds of the recycled phone to charity:
www.consumercellular.com...

I seriously doubt they are doing out of the kindness of their hearts. As usual, it is all about the $$$.

I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see a tax added on to the phones charging a recycle fee, or a core charge like they do when you buy a car battery and you don't have the old one to turn in.

I noticed after buying tires the other day they were charging a fee for disposal of the old tires. Funny thing is, they didn't dispose of them. They sold them as used tires.

Like I said, it is always about the almighty dollar.

I can't remember the show I was watching, it was one of those "news magazines" like 20/20 or 60 minutes I think, they were investigated electronics recycling.

3rd world kids extract what precious metals they can with chemicals and what's left over gets buried in landfills.

Not sure how much things have changed if at all. This was a number of years ago.

It'd be nice if more people didnt just stop at the word "recycle" and think everything was good but instead actually followed through to see exactly what "recycling" means.

Economist - Truth About Recycling
Time - E Waste Not
NatGeo - High Tech Trash

Just hearing the word "recycle" and not following through is so stereotypically Western Civ. Like writing checks to UNICEF and wiping your hands as done and ignoring the warlords who intercept the deliveries and the UN Peacekeepers who have a habit of running child sex rings or driving around in a Prius completely oblivious to the toxic as hell battery under the hood that isnt designed to last a decade.

a reply to: thisguyrighthere

The Prius battery will last a long time and isn't "toxic as hell". The battery is however heavy and has relatively low performance. Expect later versions of the Prius to be LiPo.

My apple global footprint is very low because I refuse to buy a device that you cannot replace the battery on that costs $300-$700 each and what really makes it worse is if you hook these things up to a wifi and watch what goes on using firewall logs then you will see they call home even more than microsoft and it's spyware.

Having the option to remove a battery to stop being recorded is a must have these days, much like having a lock on your front door.

My apple global footprint is very low because I refuse to buy a device that you cannot replace the battery on that costs $300-$700 each and what really makes it worse is if you hook these things up to a wifi and watch what goes on using firewall logs then you will see they call home even more than microsoft and it's spyware.

Having the option to remove a battery to stop being recorded is a must have these days, much like having a lock on your front door.

Me personally since I 1st started buying pcs back before baby internet.. I have not gave anything away that would have personal info on it.. or anything I added in general..
That is a rule of thumb for me.. I like my 4th and 9th amendment a lot.... really a lot..

I sell or get rid of everything except what holds the info on item.. HD's flash drives or whatever in phones.. If I were to give a smartphone away I would destroy the internal storage for it.. But I dont give them away so I dont have to worry about it..

People who do this are stupid.. cause alot of people can easily access all the info you had on that drive.. but to each their own I suppose.