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Apple Recycling Old Macs for Free
charleste writes "CNN is reporting that Apple is going to recycle Macs for free. I wonder if this means they will actually recycle them in Cupertino, or sent overseas to be dumped as many 'recycled' computers do, or if they will actually mine them. And does this make the MacQuarium obsolete?"
In other news, I will now recycle ANY piece of computer equipment for free. Simply get the device to me (in working order) and I will disassemble, dismember, shoot, melt, sell or attack it with a cowbell.
Funnypics
This isn't about being green, it is about removing older macs from the 2nd hand market. The exact same reason that HP offers a similar program.
what all is involved in recycling a computer? I know there is quite a bit of lead on the circuit boards that needs to be handled properly, but what exactly do they do with it?
I remember a quote from him once, pretty excellent example of Steve Jobs' mentality actually. It was both very poetic and utterly ridiculous. This was from back in the early Apple days before he was fired by Scully. He said (paraphrasing), 'I want a computer factory that takes raw beach sand in one end and outputs fully assembled Macs from just that raw material.' What a crazy, wonderful idea.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Literally. There is more gold per-ton in old computer parts than gold ore, and its cheaper to extract. so it makes sense given the recent rise of precious metals for apple to salvage as much of these resources as possible. This Free program is probably going to turn a profit.
No, no... cost more...
When there are less items available on the market, the value increases if there's still a demand for it. (if there's no demand, then the value's effectively 0)
The conspiracy theorist would assume that Apple's trying to corner the market on MacQuariums, and they need more spare parts, so they're tricking people into giving them the parts under the assumption of 'recycling' (which it is). They might even have a company that's willing to buy lots of thousands of these for the very purpose. (pbfixit comes to mind)
They might also find that it's more cost effective to strip and refurb some machines than to have new parts manufactured for those with extended warranties. (this assumes that the product is on the market long enough for people to recycle out of warranty machines while other people still have them under warranties)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
A little research is a wonderful thing /. All the news that's fit to print several days ago.
. Ahh,
bah.
Wow, why not a rebate of say 100.00 to make a user switch from win-ux and just fill a warehouse with the junk.
When it's full they can have a new ad campaign with bulldozers loading barges with all the junk and crow about how many people switched. They could probably write it all off as marketing costs and sell more hardware to boot!. Apple wins!
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
If the machines are still working, then reusing them is going to be better than ripping them apart for the gold.
At the announcement, Jobs specifically said that the recycling would all be done in the U.S. and not just shipped off to China.
Not just Macs. Steve Jobs' quote at the shareholders meeting was something like: "We like switchers too."
How has Apple handled recycling?
According to the "The 2005 Computer Report Card" by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, "Apple, Dell, Gateway, and HP are the companies that use recyclers that have signed the Electronic Recyclers Pledge of Stewardship. To learn more about the Recycler Pledge go to: http://www.svtc.org///cleancc/recycle/recycler_ple dge.htm".
In that report, note that Apple received the second highest score in the category of "DISPOSAL CHAIN". That category indicates the degree to which a company will audit the entire disposal chain (including work sub-contracted to suspicious companies in China, Taiwan Province, and Korea) to ensure that recycling of old computer equipment is done in accordance with the most ethical, most responsible practices.
Note that Apple management actually signed the Electronics Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship, committing to the gold standard of ethical, responsible recycling.
Finally, the recent decision by Apple management to take back old equipment for free is probably due to the tireless efforts of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) and other groups in the Computer TAKE-BACK Campaign (CTBC). When Steve Jobs gave the keynote speech at the 2005 graduation ceremony at Stanford University, CTBC flew a banner over the ceremony. The banner exclaimed, "STEVE - DON'T BE A MINI PLAYER - RECYCLE ALL E-WASTE".
donate them to poor urban schools, or third world countries?
Urban schools have plenty of technology, thanks to programs like E-rate. What they don't have is people to set it up, whether it's old junk like this or brand new machines. Take a walk around a typical city school some time; it's enlightening.
(I live in Buffalo, not an exceptionally wealthy city by any means.)
--saint
Apple will recycle ANY computer you decide to unload on them when you purchase a new computer. Even your old 486 Win 3.1 box. That way, switchers get in on the recycling action too.
Here's a snippet from the Shareholder meeting stating so.
Zing!
A few points:
1)This isn't only Apple computers, they will recycle computers made by anyone.
2)I'm sure if the computer has value people will sell it. I put an old 486 up on EBay before (working Pentium system). No one even bid a dollar on it, something like that has no value on the market I could find, if this program was around then I would have recycled it, but it ended up going into the trash.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
- Steve Jobs wants to take over the world
- Apple all of a sudden recycles computers for free
- Steve Jobs owns Apple
This can mean only one thing: Steve Jobs has a new trapper keeper.
In California, and many other places, it's now illegal to just throw old electronics in the trash. So Apple is actually supplying a valuable service.
If this is done properly (Which is much more likely if the actual recycling is done in the U.S. as Apple claims) this is a lot better than just dumping your old gear in the trash. A fair amount of the heavy metals can be expected to be stripped out for reuse, those parts which are not economically recyclable will be divided into two parts: general waste which is disposed of at any old landfill, and toxic materials which are disposed of at designated facilities that monitor groundwater perfusion, etc. But if the old parts are shipped off to a third world nation, chances are the end result will be less environmentally friendly than just dumping the old gear in the trash for the garbage man to deal with.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
The Computer Take-Back Campaign was canvassing this neighborhood for signatures and all just about a week or so ago.
They've been really aggressive about getting letters, etc. to Jobs and BOD members about doing take-backs on the computers (They already do them on iPods for free...) and to handle the returns in a responsible manner.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Neither Slashdot nor CNN posted Apple's official computer recycling webpage, so here it is. For the U.S. (excluding the Cupertino area) they are partnered with a company called Metech to do the recycling. In Cupertino, Apple has had their own recycling facility for quite some time now that has freely accepted used Macs, PCs and some home electronics.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I used to refurb older computers, clean them up, give them away to kids (rural poor kids in my community). They were all decent, worked well enough for school reports, surfing the web, email, etc. They all had legit licensed copies of the OS too, stuff I paid for, 95 and 98 primarily, then I would install like zone alarm and similar on them, get them all set up (no linux I found-and I tried a BUNCH- would run on pitiful amounts of RAM in GUI, so I used older windows) Not a one of them ever really bothered to learn computing, or programming or anything intelligent, ALL of them used the machines primarily for videogames. Closest they came to making them practical was to slap stickers on the outside of them...it's was nuts and a big waste of my time and money.
I don't do that anymore, not worth it, I'm relatively poor, not going to pay to subsidise that so called industry. It's stupidity, this generation's waste of time and effort. Might as well watch pro wrestling or NASCAR or something for all the good it does.
As to the schools, hell ya, if I had school age kids now they WOULD be home schooled, I have seen up close the results of the social engineering and alleged educational system as it is run today. It has gone downhill BAD since they created the federal department of education. There are a few fed agencies that should just be totally shut down as complete failed experiments, that one is near the top of the list, IMO.
The old program costs you eight bucks, while the new one is free. The old program was still very reasonable.
There's a mandatory recycling fee for monitors in California. Screens between 15" and 35" have an $8 fee (CRT and LCD). This only started last year, so it's misleading to say that just because you were charged a state-imposed tax on a newly purchased system, that it wasn't "free" to recycle your POS Pentium-III system. Heck, everyone has to charge the tax, but you don't see Fry's begging to take back your old systems*.
.gov site: http://www.erecycle.org/fee.htm
From the
Or clearer details: http://www.mpccorp.com/about/california_fee.html
* Actually, they might. I didn't check.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
I wonder if this means they will actually recycle them in Cupertino, or sent overseas to be dumped
Do a little research before you submit a story next time.. especially if the story is several days old. From Apples homepage:
Hazardous materials
No hazardous waste from Apple's U.S. recycling program is shipped outside North America. All recovered materials are processed domestically, with the exception of some commodity materials that can be recycled for future use. Apple's recycling policies prohibit the use of recovered plastics as fuel in smelting.
Georg
Now one might explain why IBM suddenly is selling these systems with very similar specs to these. Yes, the 185 is a bit neutered (memory, undocumented AIX only 3d graphics, PCI-X versus PCI-E), but they'd make for a nice system to use recycled 970's.
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