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Apple Now Offering Free Recycling For PCs
MrSeb writes "Do you have a few old, dusty beige-box computers kicking around that you'd like to turn into money? Or perhaps you'd just like to get rid of them, but you lack the means to dispose of them properly? Well, if you're in the US you're in luck: Apple will now provide postage-paid packaging to allow you to recycle your old laptop or desktop PC and its monitor for free, and if it's worth anything, you'll even get an Apple Gift Card in return. In addition, your old iPhone or iPad can now be returned for an Apple Gift Card, too."
Last year I bought a laptop that cost $3000. Clevo. It works awesome and plays even the most newest games in full detail. What would I get for it?
Google+ vs. Facebook, and why Google+ will fail
GOLD FARMERS!
anyways, this is good, bringing a little more green-ish stuff to the world counts. I hope more companies will do the same.
Does this mean I can start sending the pallets of Dells we toss out to them and get a crappy Mac in return? Yay....
Was going to post a snarky comment about "im sure you have to buy a mac first", but it looks like they dont require anything more than visiting their page and filling out a form. Looks pretty cool, and provides a nice answer to "what do I do with my stack of crappy decade-old laptops".
Recycling means it's shipped off to Africa or China, where it's stripped for parts and sold back to us at a giant markup. What's not salvageable is disposed of in whatever way they can get away with in 3rd world countries.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm a huge Apple hatter. If I ever bought an Apple product I would burst into hypocritical flames. But this is a really good idea. I have a lot of clients that a have tons of old hardware that they can't get rid of because of the cost involved in doing so. Now Apple will cover that cost, and make a little money by stripping the precious metals off the techo-trash. This is a great example of the free market's Invisible Hand. Bravo Apple, well done.
A real /.er would figure out the limit. I'm guessing its something super lame for PR purposes, like "limit one per address".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Apple is taking a loss for every computer they recycle as part of this PR effort. For every PC you send in for recycling, you're not only helping the environment* but also hurting Apple. So send in all the junk you can, then give the gift cards to an Apple fanboy who would buy the latest shiny from them anyways for maximum damage.
*At least locally, but what happens in a Chinese scrap yard stays in a Chinese scrap yard I guess...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Wondering how I can get a Sun E250 in a box and under 60 pounds.... Sounds like a job for Mr. Chainsaw!!
Don't fear the penguins
Keep America Beautiful - send your trash to China.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
1. Send computer to Apple.
2. They ship it off to PowerON
3. PowerON figures out how much it's worth
4. You get a gift card in the mail for what it's worth
Uh.... what? I don't even get to barter this? I don't even get to see their standards for judging how much is worth what?
source: https://www.apple.com/recycling/gift-card/
I'm not sure I'd ever bother with this, I might as well take the old parts and fashion myself a small server or micro PC.
"PowerON has determined that your product has a zero-dollar fair market value." What? My old PC with a sleek 450 MHz Pentium II processor, a giant 10 GB hard disk, a whopping 128 MB of RAM, and a powerful 3D Rage Pro Turbo graphics card isn't worth any thing?
so instead of having people sell their busted macs on ebay for parts, they send them back to apple, forcing people to either pay the outrageous prices for their replacement parts, or to in turn buy new macs and then send in their busted equipment to apple. sounds like a win/win for apple.
I'm sure that is common practice in Atheistic Socialist Hell-scapes but...
In the United States we pray for Invisible Hands [econlib.org] to solve our problems...
Bless his noodly appendage...
Just wondering. The PC example in the article has better specs than any I have at home, and is better than the machine I have at work. As far as Macs go, I still have a Power Mac (dual 800) that works, and it's value to me is the cost of a Mac to replace it if I recycled it. Is there really enough churn in the marketplace in this down economy to make this work?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Good for Apple. Pity they only give you an apple gift card, since I won't even put iTunes on my system; but it's better than sending old gear off to the local landfill. Let 'em bury the things in California!
Unless your desktop PC has at LEAST a Duo Core 2.8GHz processor, it's worth zero in this program.
Now, for those items that are valued at zero, you are referred to www.werecycle.com where they will give you a pre-paid mailing label. And yes, it's nice to get a pre-paid label to get it off your hands, but don't expect that old beige hardware to generate any cash.
They also won't take any iPod Touch devices.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
what I want to know, why is it that in California, they charge an ewaste "fee" whenya buy new electronics? doesn't that you pre-pay to recycle the gadget you just bought? probably does not matter anyway, after the endless caravan of Chinese freighters unload at the docks of the Western world...cheaper to pay them to load up on old electronics to haul back...and literally dump them on the beaches of some 3rd world countries such as Bangladesh, let them worry about it right? as the heavy metals pollute their ground water, yay. cheers!
The prices they offer for pretty much everything that works, including Apple products is insulting. This is likely only beneficial for unloading broken products which don't function anymore.
Some might say they're mining data off of hard drives sent for recycling. Be sure to wipe them clean.
Looks like you can buy USB peripherals through the apple store with an apple gift card.
Do you pay to recycle it? Does the government come around and pick them up for recycling?
Even in Europe, Apple has zero responsibility to take your PC if you didn't buy a computer from Apple. But Apple is accepting your old PC anyway, regardless of whether you bought something from Apple or not. Not just that, they're also paying the shipping so you don't have to haul it to a recycling center yourself AND giving you something of value in return. No law forces them to do that.
So no, it is NOT mandatory in most of Europe.
But they're doing it anyway. Is it so impossible to believe that someone in Apple is saying "hey, maybe we should help out with this recycling problem, we've got the cash so let's do it", and that someone with budgetary control said "yes, that's a good thing to do"? Apple isn't making money off of this; if this were a profit canter, Dell and HP and anybody else in the business of making a profit would be doing so.
This is what I can't stand about haters. They're so self-centeredly cynical that they don't believe that anyone except themselves are capable of doing good just for the sake of doing good.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
This is pure marketing and "come over to our side" tactic. I doubt Apple is getting much from the value of the machine. Not even in commodity value.
They're partnering through WeRecycle, who is an e-Stewards Certified recycler. Nothing is getting dumped into a 3rd world country. No data is getting mined or leaked.
There is a huge e-waste recycling industry, and this is all pretty standard stuff. I work for one of the major recyclers (also e-Stewards Certified). I thought maybe /. denizens would know more about all this, but I guess not.
The conspiracy theories are pure gold, however. I'm not a fan of Apple (products or corporate), but this is rich. Pure comedic gold.
do() || do_not();
And have they already told anyone what they are going to do with the waste? With their track record, they might just sell it to a garbage handler in, say, middle Africa.
The first thing I though of was that by doing this, Apple is removing the supply of mid- to late-model, surplus PCs out of the hand-me-down eco system. Just a few stories ago, someone asked what OS to put on a donated computer. Apple's recommendation is: send us the PC instead, we'll kick in a few bucks and then you can buy them an Apple!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Mail in programs (like this, and Staples, and Gazelle) are avoiding the heavy lifting. Most of the expense in public "e-waste" recycling programs are the 100+ pound CRT TVs, no one mails those or even boxes them. The computers actually almost pay for themselves, and the small Ipods and ebay-able items really offset the cost of recycling. While I wouldn't criticize Apple per se, mail in programs and cell phone returns are to ewaste recycling infrastructure what plastic surgery is to public health care. Save the publicity for the public recycling programs who manage everything with a cord.
Gently reply
The biggest issue I have with e-waste recycling is that it sometimes pollutes the environment of the countries that are processing the waste for their valuable components and simply dumping the rest. In effect, by "recycling," people are just shifting their garbage to other nations with cheap labor and less stringent environmental regulations. China does most (but not all) of this task. So, if people are going to recycle their old electronics, it has to be done properly. The problem for the consumer is that they generally don't have access to the information that would allow them to know which programs and services are legitimate.
It's my hope that Apple has teamed up with recyclers to give such initiatives credibility, allowing consumers to feel encouraged to send their e-waste for recycling. I hope that this program does things the right way--even if it costs more money--rather than merely serve as a convenient facade for more toxic dumping. Apple has been working hard to reduce the use of environmentally unfriendly materials in their products and substitute easily recyclable materials (like aluminum and glass) in their place, recognizing that you can't pollute what you don't use in the first place.
Many of us have seen how Greenpeace has been slamming Apple for not doing "enough" to address environmental sustainability. We know it's mostly political--by attacking the maker of the most popular consumer computing hardware in the world, Greenpeace gets the attention in the press they're seeking. And at the same time, Apple is forced to work even harder to go above and beyond what other companies merely promise they do. I bet Greenpeace will just find yet another way to spin this program in a negative light and continue to whine about how it's still not enough, just so they can get more headlines and donations.
I "dispose" of my old PCs like I "dispose" of all of my old electronics and appliances. On trash day, I set them out, lined up, by the trash can, and one of several different guys with a flatbed truck will roll by and take all of it before the garbage men get here. I would assume they're either fixing them and putting them back into service (good), or recycling them and getting a profit out of that (even better). I doubt they're just throwing them away, since it costs a lot around here to get rid of that much trash. In any event, it's no longer my problem.
What I DO find highly ironic though... they won't take TV sets. In fact, we had a neighbor evicted and he apparently, unable to pay his rent, had I counted FIVE television sets that were placed out on the curb along with several pieces of furniture and other junk. Those TVs sat there, untouched, for a couple weeks before a bulk trash truck came by and took all of it.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Especially a 3GS, which many people will undoubtedly trade in this year for a 5. Perfectly fast and good, if it weren't locked down....
Why don't you install Android on it then? What kind of cut-rate nerd are you?
Looks like you can buy USB peripherals through the apple store with an apple gift card.
They give you a $20 gift card, but the cheapest item you can buy with it is $60.
Apple are expensive for Australia.
Australia is a lot more expensive then the US.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's the "Apple is doing this because they're eeeeeevil" posts that are really grating. If anybody else were doing this the praises from the green crowd would be overwhelming.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
http://www.freegeek.org/
This could potentially impact how they recycle and reuse computers, especially the fact that Apple is providing free recycling for monitors, which usually cost $12 to recycle in any recycling place around the country.
coding is life
One with an iota of reading comprehension. Point to where I said *I* was going to trade one in.
I still wouldn't put Android on it. I simply don't like Android. I would just jailbreak it. But I'm not the typical consumer.
Any real company worth their salt, and interested in helping the clients, would offer some credit towards the purchase of their next machine....as most of the still functioning computers can still be sent to 3rd world countries and help the poor.
I work for a non-profit that recently set up a computer and e-waste recycling program. I'm actually pretty intimidated right now, because although I believe Apple will lose money on this deal, (unless a ton of people are actually dumb enough to trade a computer that would go for 500 bucks on ebay for a 50 dollar gift card) they may well keep it up as a PR balance to Foxconn, etc. So yes, I'm pretty much just whining, but I won't be the only one facing job-loss because a mega-corporation screwed up and now needs a public face-lift. I urge you to look for local e-recyclers, to evaluate their reputation, and use them instead if they pass scrutiny. Keep in mind that not everyone can afford to be certified by one of the formal programs (like the ISRI's http://www.certifiedelectronicsrecycler.com/ program) but that doesn't mean they're shipping e-waste overseas.
Way to miss the point. That being, it isn't locked down in any way. You can use it with the software that came on it. You can change the software/OS. Sure people will trade in old models, but people trade in old Linux boxes for new ones. That doesn't make something "locked down" unless you're an idiot for whome "locked down" means the specific company you want to don something isn't doing it for your lazy butt.