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San Francisco To Stop Buying Apple Computers
New submitter djnanite writes "Following on from the story that Apple has exited the 'Green Hardware' certification program, the BBC reports that City officials in San Francisco plan to block local government agencies from buying new Apple's Macintosh computers. Will they be the first of many, or will cheaper products override people's conscience? 'Other CIOs in government and educational institutions, where Apple has a strong presence, could find themselves asked to drop MacBooks and iMacs. The federal government, for example, requires 95% of its laptops and desktops be EPEAT-certified.' Apple defended the move by saying their products are environmentally superior in areas not measured by EPEAT."
The beginning of the end for Apple
Apple defended the move by saying their products are environmentally superior in areas not measured by EPEAT."
They must mean those superior shiny rounded rectangular areas.
"Will they be the first of many, or will cheaper products override people's conscience?"
Considering Apple computers are more expensive than certified non-Apple computers; I think it is safe to say whether you are environmentally conscious or a bean counter the choice is definitely not new apple products.
Environmentally superior = You don't have to repair it (cause you can't)! Just buy a new one!
Are people around the world basing their IT decisions on what the City of San Francisco does?
Yes, we're planning to incarcerate our network security guy in Q4.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If you cannot disassemble them to separate the components, then they are not recyclable. Thats the big issue here: Apple is now making their products so it is impossible to taking it apart by gluing dissimilar components together.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
As more government and private organisations move to BYOD, where there is less control over these purchasing decisions I wonder if BYOD policies will also be updated to exclude employee's using devices that aren't adhering to EPEAT, I doubt it.
When I first heard this decision I just wondered if Apple were again abandoning the Enterprise market, because they can just attack the consumer market, which is now well and truly making inroads into Enterprise IT.
San Francisco can do whatever they want, but I sure don't feel any pain of conscience over EPEAT. Apple products are recyclable.
Do you even know anything about this? Do you now what EPEAT is and why Apple is no longer certified? It's because binding the batteries to the aluminium means you can't recycle them! How much more of an apologist could you be?!
They can still be recycled. They might not be repaired or refurbished, but recycled, sure.
I brought several P3 and P4 machines to my recycling center. They probably weren't resold, but I'm pretty sure they got recycled.
But it's kind of a dick move from Apple,.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The federal government, for example, requires 95% of its laptops and desktops be EPEAT-certified.
So, only the top 5% elite of government folks get Apples, and the other 95% normal folks just get inferior, non-cool and non-chic EPEAT made of unreliable biodegradable materials that dissolve in the rain! This just isn't fair! Why should only the top 5% get Apples!
Occupy the federal government!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It is possible to remove a glued on component. Glue does not actually form an eternal bond.
Because a city government choosing to avoid a particular tech product for environmental reasons is news for nerds AND news that matters? It is a rebuke of Apple's move, one that might be repeated in other cities across the US. It is also interesting because it represents an opportunity to get linux into government offices. If Apple wants to avoid the official certification, then there is room for competition. As an added bonus, less tax dollars spent on hardware.
You're implying that Apple are the cheaper products?...
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
If it is impossible to take apart the retina MBP, how are they able to offer battery replacement service?
I guess they use magic or something, and recyclers are normal people so they are unable to tear apart the new MBP's.
Or obliviously blinding? (Gotta be one of the two! :D )
Anyway, the deal is that apple is used to living in the reality distortion bubble.
The reality that their design choices have political consequences, and that these consequences should and will have effects on the salability of their offerings is not respected, because they are used to altered reality where their design choices are fawned over and lauded as innovative and amazing.
In this case, we have a clearly foolish decision (ignore the EPEAT requirements for service and recycling), so that they can enforce an ideological position (our way is best, and we won't compromise. You should just change your requirements, because our products are just so awesome that they floor the competiton in every imaginable metric, including environmental friendliness!) that is sure to come back to haunt them. (Strict fed reqs regarding EPEAT compliance means no apple products purchased, and existing ones are phased out for compliant replacements.)
I am actually enjoying the spectacle of reality creeping into the fantasyland antics at apple. Hopefully they will learn their lesson that projecting a false reality hs consequences that they can't just wish away, and come away wiser for it.
What? Apple's using inferior glue? Why, that's outrageous! Demand GNLUE, the free adhesive that will liberate us all from Apple's proprietary, impermanent adhesives!
I believe Apple doesn't want to comply with the EPEAT standard because it doesn't start with a lower case 'i' --> iPEAT
San Francisco does today what the more advanced parts of the developed world will do tomorrow. It is enormously influential. Its geography is a roll call of large parts of the US computer industry. The first development system I ever used came from Marin County, the second operating system from a place called Berkeley, and much of what has followed has come from Cupertino or Palo Alto. And a slap from the City Council for the largest corporation in the area will play well with the residents.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You probably shouldn't buy any smart phones or tablets of any brand - EPEAT doesn't even attempt to certify those.
I have to wonder how effective this will actually be. There are processes to get around this ban - they're supposedly onerous, but the city would of course claim that whether it were really true or not.
Apple claims they'll recycle any computer returned to them. It would be interesting to pin them down on the specifics regarding how their non-EPEAT-certified hardware is recycled, piece by piece.
#DeleteChrome
cheaper computers usually don't have EPEAT certification anyway. What share of sales would SF account for? very little I would guess.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The deal with the glue is that it makes the recycling effort cost prohibitive, and removes the already small margin for fiscal incentive for said recycling. The glued features cannot be easily seperated, increasing the cost to recycle above a critical metric.
Apple says it won't stop this practice, because finding an alternative means they would have to make thicker devices, or devices more likely to come apart on their own.
The consequence of this decision is that they are no longer EPEAT certified, and now their products are less salable.
What is so hard to comprehend here?
I have a really witty comment about San Francisco stopping buying Apple computers, but it's in poor taste, and would probably be perceived as an attempt at flamsterbaition, rather than the sincere attempt at being a smartass that it would actually be.
So I'll skip posting it, but you might want to pretend I did and mod me town as a troll anyway, just for thinking of it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
probably not because apple products amount to less than 2% of SF government computers.
Replacing the Retina batteries involves the replacement of the enclosure as well (source : iFixit).
Captcha : poorer ...
Can people really be this pig ignorant about what recycling entails?
Recycling is NOT dumping it in a landfill, burning it OR bringing it to a recycling center. It is about removing materials requiring special handling and separating a product into distinct materials so those materials can be re-used.
For metal, this is easy. You can simply take a complete car, grind it up, melt and scoop all the bits non-metal. You have fully recycled the metal... but still, burning all that plastic, battery acid, glass is a bit nasty.
You COULD use a magnet to separate the metal from the rest but not all metals are magnetic and this will STILL leave you with a mess of non-metal that would take a legion to sort by hand.
So, how do you REALLY recycle a car? You take it apart. You remove the plastic bumper and put it on the pile with other plastic parts that you know are the same type of plastic because it is stamped on the part. Same types of plastics can be for better recycled then a pile of all sorts combined. This goes so far that for instance plastic bottles can be shredded and just melted into new ones. Failed bottles at production go right back into the process.
Once you separated all the different materials, you can re-use them or dispose of them in a safe manner. But the separation must be relatively easy OR the costs just sky-rocket. Taking of a bumper is easy especially if you don't have to care about damage. Separating two bonded plates, not so much.
A prime example of this is in electricity cables. Copper is expensive enough to make recycling worth while but separating it from the plastic surrounding it, is near impossible. What is done instead in many places is that the plastic is burned off. A very polluting process and not the idea behind recycling at all.
Now Apples devices are hard to take apart. If a screen can't be screwed open, the screen can't be separated from the shell, meaning it has to be shredded instead. You can still reclaim some materials but not as easily as with a screw driver.
The above poster seems to think that recycling means re-using working parts or re-selling the entire device. This is a FORM of recycling but NOT what this article is about. In the end, after re-selling the device will either end up in a landfill, be dumped OR be taken apart. The first two are wasteful, the second becomes more costly when the separate materials are harder to separate. Apple has basically said, we don't give a fuck about the environment and try to hide it by saying they are better but in areas nobody measures. Well, I am a better sportsman then anyone at the Olympics, just not in any Olympic sport.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Most recycling starts out cost prohibitive because it's inefficient. The profits come from subsidy. The glue makes it even more inefficient, and so the required subsidy is bigger if they're going to bother.
Since AppleCare handles the batteries as well, and Apple will replace them for $200, it stands to reason that Apple has a way to properly remove the batteries. Probably a solvent of some kind that is specific to the glue they use.
They'll just replace your laptop.
I went to an Apple store the other day to replace my now dead battery out of my iPhone 3GS. I left with a brand new iPhone 3GS (or refurbished, I don't know, but not the unit I walked in with).
Write boring code, not shiny code!
If you cannot disassemble them to separate the components, then they are not recyclable. Thats the big issue here: Apple is now making their products so it is impossible to taking it apart by gluing dissimilar components together.
You use the word "impossible" very lightly. If you were working for the recycler who gets a few hundred thousand Apple laptops for recycling, and your boss would tell you to figure out how to recycle them, would you say "its impossible"? I think your boss would say "if it is impossible for you, I'll hire someone who can figure it out".
It is possible to remove a glued on component. Glue does not actually form an eternal bond.
Yes it is possible, but only if said component has rounded corners!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
On the flip side, the significantly larger quantities of aluminum (as opposed to plastic) probably offset the glue removal in the cost balance equation.
EPEAT defines specific processes for recycling and doesn't acknowledge other alternatives or new technologies. Even with the glue, the brand new Macbook Pro I'm typing on right now is more recyclable than any laptop which uses screws to attach batteries to the chasis.
LEED (green building construction) is a much better model for certifications like this because it's flexible. No one single "dirty" technique would cost you certification. Instead, you earn points for doing a myriad of different things for cumulative score used for certification.
Adhering to strictly-defined standards results in stagnant products and services, since the government is rarely pressured to update their certification requirements.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Wow, you seriously know nothing about the current state of these products. It is prohibitively expensive to separate the materials now. Sure it's possible, but it's not cost effective anymore. This is the whole reason Apple left the initiative. They recognize their machines can't be easily recycled anymore and they're perfectly fine with this shit finding its way into landfills if it means their pretty hardware can be even prettier.
"Apple defended the move by saying their products are environmentally superior in areas not measured by EPEAT."
First line from front page of the EPEAT website:
"EPEAT is a comprehensive environmental rating..."
Perhaps you use the word "impossible" in a childishly literal sense.
If my boss came up to me and told me to work out how to recycle them, and I found out that I could not do it within his financial requirements, I would say "it's impossible," the obvious implication being "...at this cost."
Also, the word are you looking for is "it's," not "its." The apostrophe indicates a missing letter, in this case another i. "Its" is possessive.
Do the words "hazmat", and "lawsuit" mean anything?
Lion battery packs are sensitive to heat and rupture. Manhandling with a putty knife greatly increases the risk of rupturing the battery, which increases the risk that process employees will come into contact with dangerous lithium salts. Heating the pack sufficiently to dislodge the glue means heating the pack above the electrolyte boiling temp, and potentially exploding the battery, or otherwise destabilizing the cell in a dangerous way.
Either practice opens the door to litigation.
Its just better if apple has more forethought on their PLM strategy. (Product Lifecycle Managment.) They keep thir certifications, recycling plants make money, and recycled materials handlers don't get exposed to nasty things and sue people. Win, win, win.
Which means they were for "select few". And I kinda doubt that those who want a new Retina MBP will not get one -- they'll probably simply expense it (instead of having the IT department buy them one). :)
Either that, or there will be a new exemption soon, for "ultra-thin computers" with "has to be able to disassemble" requirement removed
Hyperom.com
And that 3GS will later be repaired, refurbished, then either resold or given to another customer like yourself.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Apple sounds like the oil industry explaining why they don't need regulation since they self monitor.
But then they'd have to make their products a couple of millimeters thicker. Such a proposal is anathema to Apple. This is the company that recently dropped ethernet ports from their new laptop models just so they could make them thinner than the height of an RJ45. Even worse, if they didn't glue everything together, unauthorised people like the product owners may be able to get inside and corrupt Apple's purity of design with repairs and upgrades!
The June 2012 changes to the EPAT verification criteria require them to permit on-site compliance audits by third parties.
I'm thinking someone with a long history of working for Samsung has enough familiarity with the electronics industry to be a qualified third party auditor, then quit the auditing company and go back to work for Samsung.
This seems to be an attempt to look in Apple's manufacturing shorts to see how their assembly lines are run.
...they'll do it in China, where labor costs are low and the special solvents aren't banned yet.
No sig today...
Heaven forbid somebody replace their stock 500gb drive with a 1.5TB one!
...how generous of them to take away my very expensive hardware (that would have otherwise only needed minor repair) in exchange for a 10% discount on an iPod. /sarcasm
This move by Apple shows they no longer have any shred of conscience post-Jobs and that is the final straw for me. The very minimum I would expect from a corp trying to be responsible in conjunction with a move like this would be to extend the warranty options (by years) over what is currently available through Applecare. If you think that is infeasible with portable devices, you may be right. But that would also mean Apple's new policy is unworkable as well.
Speaking as one who has seen Apple refurb lines at Foxconn in Shenzhen, this is correct. They'll reuse the main board and the display (if the backlight still meets the spec), but not the case or the external connectors. They don't want any visible wear on a refurb unit.
As for car batteries, I believe they are about 95% recyclable. Although sulfuric acid is nasty stuff, it is easy to pour off and treat. In fact, most liquid handling is very easy with well established procedures. Years ago the company I worked for acquired a plating plant (tanks of alkali, nickel and chrome salts, cyanides, concentrated sulfuric acid, you name it). Our insurers promptly cancelled our insurance. The local safety executive recommended us to a specialist insurer, who told us that, though many insurance companies were frightened of plating plants, they actually have an excellent safety record and rarely result in insurance claims. It is a matter of sticking to well-established procedures. There is no reason at all why recycling plants should not be the same.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
According to an AC comment on the previous discussion about this by someone who claimed to have access to their internal servicing documents, Apple just replaces the whole keyboard, upper case and battery assembly on the new Macbook Pro with Retina Display as a single unit. Apparently they can't unglue the batteries either.
Wow, your evidence that stuff can be recycled is that you went to a recycling center and dumped your stuff there? You do realize that most the stuff ends up as conventional waste?
At least that's my assumption. Perhaps you are referring to some other activity. But that would be unlikely, since only trolls do that on Slashdot.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Why they are allowed to flaunt my state's law regarding removable device batteries. In a city not afraid to cuff Mike Wallace over a parking ticket, has the cool factor exempted them from the law? Show my kids have to drink poison wanted b/c some people wanted to look cool in a cafe?
One single "dirty" technique can cause a product to not be economically recyclable. There is a pretty big different between the costs associated with a laptop and a building.
Supposedly, they offer battery replacement by removing the entire upper chassis, battery, keyboard and trackpad assembly, throwing it out, and installing a new assembly. Likewise, screen replacement involves replacing the entire lid assembly as a sealed unit.
Perhaps they take them back to refurbish the ones they can so they can use them as warranty replacements. It would also be a bad look for them if land fills were full of recognisable apple products
I heard it's pretty cheap to grind up consumer goods beyond recognition and ship it off to 3rd world countries.
The robust design, reduced dimensions & weight are a large part of the reason why people want the rMBP. If you want my old Dell e6500 you can have it. Its huge, heavy, slow, starting to fall apart & the motherboard is showing signs of imminent failure thanks to NVidia. On the positive side you can take it apart, but I wish you luck with Dell's support in trying to get the individual pieces like hinges, plastic screen bezel, speaker grills that lost their paint long ago & a new motherboard that you'd need to make it useful again.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
You can keep your heavy power-hungry fragile rotating device. I'll use the apple 500Gb flash drive for a few years until something better comes out in a few years, just as it did for the Airs...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
People want the rMBP because it has the most kick-ass screen ever to grace a laptop. Graft that panel onto a bulky black box of a machine with equivilent spec plus ethernet, and I'd buy it as my next laptop.
You are shoing significant ignorance by saying "THEY CANT BE REPAIRED" they can be. I have repaired several ipad2's iphone 4S's and others. All of this is just bullshit being spread around by the ignorant.
This sounds like the same crap when SMT components hit the market... "We cant fix things anymore" or when the transistor replaced tubes.
They CAN be repaired and a lot of people are doing it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
special solvents? I use fricking Goo gone.
any idiot can fix an iphone or ipad if you know how and have the right tools.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...in any practical sense. You're correct that these design choices have consequences, but your interpretation, which appears to be that Apple products are actually less green because of it, is completely false.
The EPEAT requirements are dated, and Apple provides comprehensive recycling for all of its products, making the ability to disassemble them moot — do you really believe individuals, businesses, or government agencies are disassembling Apple — or any other — products themselves for recycling? Those parts of the EPEAT guidelines are designed that way so that all manufacturers' products are broadly recyclable.
BUT APPLE HAS A FREE RECYCLING PROGRAM FOR ALL OF ITS PRODUCTS, not to mention leads the industry in the amount of recyclable materials in its products. In other words, even without EPEAT, Apple is still better than other manufacturers on the environment front. Now, it's understandable that government and institutional customers would look to such a standard, because it makes things easier and has many other benefits — but Apple not being a part of EPEAT doesn't mean Apple is "less green" in a real sense.
For what it's worth, this is Apple's response.
Apple's problem is the EPEAT certification is required by government. If you don't meet the requirements, your bid won't even pass the first round of competition.
Period.
It doesn't matter how "cool" or "popular" your devices are -- you lose the bid.
They made their design decisions knowing they wouldn't be EPEAT certified, now it's time to suck up the result: lost business.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I think that's a good decision, also saves the taxpayer a lot of money as an Apple computer/screen costs a lot more than another system, and it's not necessary for the job they do..
What is interesting to me in all of this is that they are removing the certifications from products already certified. I really have a difficult time understanding why they would do that? It isn't like they can go back and make the iMac on your desk less recyclable. Though my guess is this is going to matter more to institutional buyers than the general public. If you took a poll I suspect you'd find that maybe 10% of the laptop buying public even knows what EPEAT is.
Instead of using glue that's difficult to remove, why not use the same stuff that's used in those 3M Command removable wall hangers? When you need to separate the components, just give the little strip a tug and the glue pops right out!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
If it weren't for the "walled" garden, one could probably emulate a IIGS on a 3GS.
I agree that LEED has a better model. Though it is important to note that they are really looking at different things. When you are dealing with a building the major environmental impact isn't in its disposal. The major impact is in its operation. So LEED spends a lot of time looking at things like power usage, water usage, type of materials used in construction, how far those materials were shipped and whether those materials are difficult to dispose of at the end of their life. After they look at all of that the score you. LEED is a much more comprehensive standard than EPEAT. EPEAT is just about recycling
I can see an argument for a LEED like standard that looks at all aspects of a device and scores it. That would have the advantage that in addition to whether a device is recyclable they would look at how its made, what it is made of, how much energy it uses when it operates, does it contain toxic components etc. Then they would render a score for it. That would encourage companies to do things like upgrade their factories to be more efficient and look at aspects of their products other than just recycling that have environmental impacts
Apple claims they are working on their own standard. Perhaps they will follow a more LEED like model. Though you have to wonder why they didn't make their own standard first then quit EPEAT. This whole thing would look better if they said "The EPEAT standard isn't comprehensive enough so we are going to use the new and improved STANDARD X". Rather than just abandoning the standard and looking foolish.
Now, if only somebody would make completely EPEAT compatible PCs, and get them to run GNU/Hurd and completely Liberated GPL3 software, San Francisco's computing problems would be solved.
Since Apple will recycle your Apple machine for free, I fail to see how the economics of it are really relevant. They will even pay YOU for your machine, depending on just how old it is.
www.apple.com/recycling
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
This is the one point I've not been able to find ANY explanation for, nevermind a satisfactory one. It costs them nothing to allow EPEAT ratings to stand for products already rated. They could simply have decided to stop submitting new models for rating, and saved themselves the hassle of negative PR, and grandstanding announements like this from the city of SF (how many macs are purchased by SF right now anyway?).
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
In my experience with Government procurement the top 5% of the Government gets the latest greatest hardware that then sits on their desks unused. The people actually doing the work are using some ancient machine that the rest of the world retired five to ten years ago. Usually configured in such a way that they have to hand out "suicide prevention" kits with the machines.
Prefix that with "some" & I'd agree but the few people I know who want/have the rMBP want the semi-air package. The people who just want the screen are waiting for Apple to make a MBP or for someone else to use an equivalent screen. I wouldn't hold my breath (& didn't as I bought a rMBP) because, much like they did with the retina iPhones & iPads, Apple has a lock on suppliers capable of delivering these quality hi-def screens that looks like it'll last for a year or two.
My last 2 PC's had 15" WUXGA screens so I've had "hi def" screens for a while. I moved to the rMBP because in part because the whole package is a real improvement.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Absolutely. Once SF switches from iPads to PADDs, and from Siri to Majel, there will be a whole FEDERATION of people following their lead...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
If Apple products are superior to EPEAT standards, then why stop getting EPEAT certification? Apple should re-think this. Not only will government agencies and municipalities quit buying, because they are required to meet EPEAT, the environmentally concerned will, too. I can see the MIcrosoft slogan now: Save a tree, buy a Windows PC.
So you are defending Apple's position of trust me, I will make sure my products are green because they were in the past? Obviously, if Apple no longer wants to be certified as EPEAT, then there must be some change they want to make that wouldn't be compliant with EPEAT. Otherwise, why ask to be decertified? Even the Apple Response link you posted is double speak. Apple is dropping EPEAT certification because Dell isn't Energy Star listed? What's that about?
Yes, San Francisco is the center of the universe. Really. Just ask anyone who lives there.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
It's not enough. San Fran has to outlaw the sale and possession of all Apple products. Viva La Revolucion!
special solvents? I use fricking Goo gone.
any idiot can fix an iphone or ipad...
It's too bad Goon B Gone doesn't work, eh?
You know, stop the fuckers from gluing it in it the first place?
The point is that EPEAT alone isn't the end-all, be-all of green certifications. Organizations use EPEAT because it is a metric; a box that is easy to check; an easy way to define the "greenness" of a product. Apple helped develop the EPEAT standard, and has been one of the most committed and transparent manufacturers to green tech, environment, and recycling.
Apple pulled all of its products — even all of them that are certified — because EPEAT isn't consistent with Apple's design directions. Apple explicitly told EPEAT this. EPEAT requires that the products be able to be completely disassembled with normal tools for recycling. The Retina MacBook Pros do not meet this.
But Apple will completely recycle the laptops itself (other manufacturers do not do this), and even contracts with a zero-landfill recycler to recycle ANY brand of equipment for free.
If you can't understand that Apple might exceed EPEAT in real, practical terms, including more than other certified manufacturers, then you're unlikely to understand Apple's motivations for departing EPEAT because the EPEAT standard simply doesn't reflect in real terms what Apple does to be "green". What if someone meets EPEAT for disassembly and percentage of recyclable parts, but it's a lot lower percentage than Apple? In what world does that make the lesser product "more green"?
Will they be the first of many, or will cheaper products override people's conscience?
Cheaper products? From Apple? What insane universe are YOU from?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I was about to mod you up until I realized something: there is no guarantee that Apple's free recycling program will be around tomorrow. Given that people may hold on to their hardware for up to six years or more, there are decent odds that Apple's free recycling program could be gone by the time users are ready to recycle their hardware. Since EPEAT is an industry-wide standard, that is what most recycling programs depend on. Instead of continuing to support EPEAT, they're pulling a move from Microsoft's 1990's playbook: "we're better than the standard, therefore the standard should conform to us". That would be acceptable if they worked with the standards organizations to get the standard formally updated, but instead they've made a unilateral decision that divides the industry.
...and there's no guarantee anyone will be EPEAT-certified tomorrow, either. The future is never guaranteed. All we can do is look at Apple's track record and the trends in its green and environmental commitments.
Sounds a bit like "I've had this axe for 50 years, and it's only had 5 new handles and a new head".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Minimum standards are designed to bring the worst of the worst up to the lowest acceptable standard (sort of like "No Child Left Behind.") But they also have a way of dragging down the best of the best. EPEAT is more than "long in the tooth," it's downright archaic by Apple standards. In recycling (even before they had a transparent recycling program) Apple has been way ahead of other computing device companies (and Greenpeace) for at least a decade. Their design decisions in packaging and product energy efficiency alone put them far ahead of everyone else long before anyone mentioned the term "CO2 footprint."
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
Not recommended without a Transwarp.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Will they be the first of many, or will cheaper products override people's conscience?"
Since when are Mac's a cheaper product?
Seems like a pretty dick move for Apple to abandon and undermine a standard they once supported. These standards can't be quick to get adopted and implemented... seems a shame they've just pointed to a huge, probably worthwhile, set of standards and said "this doesn't mean anything," rather than working to fix it.
Here's what I think the reason is:
- Apple makes a new product that is way more environmentally friendly than previous models. Less toxic materials, efficient construction, etcetera. The only problem is that it's hard to take apart, but that shouldn't matter since Apple will do the recycling for you at no charge. Who cares whether they're easy or hard to take apart as long as Apple does it? Apple can probably afford the extra dollar or so to unglue a battery. They're likely to be saving more than that in initial construction by using glue instead of drilling holes and putting in screws anyway.
- EPEAT doesn't see it that way: Thou shalt use screws or be screwed.
- Apple cannot get EPEAT to change their mind even though they can show their product to be environmentally superior. It doesn't matter, the rules are the rules and the rules say screws.
- Apple says: "screw EPEAT and their screwy screw rules" and decides to use its own users as lobbyists. They cancel all EPEAT certifications for all their products in a move Steve Jobs would have been proud of.
- Since Hell hath no fury like a Mac user forced to use Windows, you can rest assured that Mac users in organisations forced to buy EPEAT-certified products will complain massively. Rules will be bent and then changed. EPEAT will have to adapt or risk being replaced by some new standard.
Apparently the spirit of Steve Jobs is alive and well at Apple.
Let's say that, for whatever reason, all manufacturers cease being EPEAT certified at some point in the future. In that event all the devices they made during the period they were certified are recyclable under the EPEAT standard.
On the other hand, imagine a scenario where Apple's recycling program has ended. Maybe Apple goes out of business, as unlikely as that may seem, or maybe they just decide the recycling program isn't profitable. All the equipment made prior to that change wouldn't be recyclable under the standard, and with nowhere for it to go it becomes a problem.
RTFA? "Only around 500-700, or 1%-2% total, of municipal computers are Macs, Walton estimated. "
I'm amazed they were buying Apple computers in the first place. Do San Francisco's taxpayers know that their local government is willing to spend twice what they need to on a computer just so they can have one that looks pretty?
Well of course they do, that's why they live in San Francisco.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
So we know that a good chunk of government agencies require the EPEAT cert but what about public schools? Could this slowly put an end to ipads/apple products in general being used in the school environment?
Old machine: Yes.
New machine: No.
It's the new machines we're discussing, here. The ones where the *lithium* battery is glued to the *aluminum* case, over top of the *plastic* keyboard and *glass* trackpad. None of these materials can be recycled together and it is impossible to remove the battery, to separate them for recycling, without rupturing it and starting a lithium fire. I'll let you do your own math in the fused screens they're using now.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Until you fuse them together like the new MBP displays.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
They can still be recycled. They might not be repaired or refurbished, but recycled, sure.
I brought several P3 and P4 machines to my recycling center. They probably weren't resold, but I'm pretty sure they got recycled.
I didn't know the new Apple products being discussed were P3 and P4 machines! wow
Oh, wait...
Yeah, I recycled a tuna can, therefore ___(noun)___ must be recyclable.
Recyclers can deal with glue, yes. They deal with it by prying the glued pieces apart, damaging both sides in the process. This typically doesn't matter, because both sides are being recycled, so damage is not an issue. When one of the sides is a lithium polymer battery with a 1/2mm aluminum skin, which will erupt into flame if breached, damage is suddenly an issue.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
They take them back for "recycling". And most of them probably do get recycled. The retina MBPs? They get "recycled". They haven't been caught yet because, well, nobody's brought one in for recycling.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You can get a Chevy Impala with a lot more power than an Acura TL and at a cheaper price. Of course, the TL is a far better vehicle, better engineered, better built, more reliable, and overall more pleasant to use.
You pay for lightness and thinness in the notebook market regardless of the brand. Check out the prices on Sony's ultra-thin notebooks. Asus has competition to the MacBook Air. It's about $200 less, but it has a slower last-generation CPU (Sandy Bridge, which means last-generation GPU too), is a bit thicker, has a low-res camera, and is missing Thunderbolt.
A lot of people, myself included, obviously disagree.
Apple having their own "recycling program" doesn't solve the problem. The requirement isn't for a buy-back program, or for a company to have a disposal program with the word "recycle" in it, the requirement is to meet actual real life physical standards that recycling companies have. Those companies have worked with the government already to come up with the EPEAT standard.
And you miss the point. We actually care about recycling, that is why we support these types of standards. Just because the glue gets in the way by the time the recycled goods have worked their way downstream into the care of foreign companies, doesn't make a bit of difference. We want it to, in the end, eventually be disassembled and recycled.
There is also some trickery when you claim Apple "leads the industry in the amount of recyclable materials in its products." Yes it is true that they have lots of materials listed as recyclable, but that is what this is about; once you glue them together, they are no longer recyclable... and yet Apple still lists them because the material itself is still categorized as recyclable, even if the part made from it no longer is.
Apple helped create the EPEAT standard alongside the other stakeholders who helped define it.
And you have missed my point: I actually care about recycling, which is why I'm making this argument in the first place. You're making the claim that, e.g., the Retina MacBook Pro can't be disassembled and recycled. But Apple has a zero-landfill recycling program for all their products — which includes the Retina MacBook Pro. So to cut to the chase, are you saying Apple is lying, or doesn't have a technique to do this, just because iFixit or someone else believes it isn't possible?
(Apple even has a contract to recycle products from ANY manufacturer, for free, with free shipping fees and boxes provided. What other vendor does this? Who puts their money where their mouth is on the environment?)
My entire point is that Apple's products, in real, practical terms, are MORE recyclable, in terms of recyclable content contained therein, and the ability to actually recycle them — albeit by using Apple's programs for things like iPhone, iPad, and now the Retina MacBook Pro — and that many other EPEAT-certified products may be (and are) markedly worse than Apple's products in this sense, but can still be certified because they are able to be disassembled with conventional tools.
So who's "greener"?
They just can't be easily recycled according to their outdated criteria. They require screws to certify it can be recycled, but apparently have never heard of a heat gun to disassemble glued parts.
They don't care about the case of the battery. Maybe if the case is recyclable plastic, they'll ship it to a plastic recycler where it gets crushed up anyway.
What they want to do is extract the lithium compounds from the innards of the battery.
Apple helped create the EPEAT standard alongside the other stakeholders who helped define it.
Then they'll have an uphill battle fighting it.
But Apple has a zero-landfill recycling program for all their products — which includes the Retina MacBook Pro
What a load of crap. Yes, they keep the stuff out of American landfills. That is not the primary issue with recycling toxic electronics. Do they require their buyers to give them a piece of paper that claims it won't end up in a landfill anywhere? Yes. so does everybody else. It is a known feature of the landfill problem that most of what is landfilled or unsafely processed got some corporate stamp of green approval.
The funniest part of Apple's recycling program is their metrics... they take the weight of materials they recycled this year and compare it to the weight of product they sold 7 years ago. So nearly everything in their metric is the cases and batteries. The toxic stuff they glued together doesn't weight much compared to a case or power supply. Duh. And then they blame the metric on Dell! How many times in their propaganda do they talk about Dell? Just when they're saying something so stupid that they have to point a finger to say, "well it's his number!"
And the workers aren't required to wear expensive respirators...
Or they will refurbish the units they can for warranty replacements and throw away the ones they can't.
Wedge schmedge. I didn't mention the mammoth tendon lashings because I get through a set a month. They never used to rot so quick in the old days. I blame all this warm weather. No good will come of it, mark my proto-words..
Now get off my tundra!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd be careful trying to separate the LiIon battery from the plastic case with a screwdriver. You could end up recycling yourself that way.
But it certainly is possible to make a glue strong enough to destroy whatever it's gluing before the bond breaks. Likewise a glue where the solvent will destroy the thing that is glued.
Do the words "putty knife" or "heat gun" mean anything to you?
In the context of a LiIon battery, they sure do. It ends with OOOM!
The sad thing is that I have opened up no-name Chinese tablets and found the battery to be adequately secured by double sticky foam tape. Those can be safely pulled out by hand yet are secure enough that when the case is closed there's no chance it'll break loose.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm wondering how the glued-in battery in the new Retina Macbook Pros are going to be recycled?
I assume they would need to be removed because of all the toxic/dangerous chemicals inside, but is it that they don't need to be removed? How will you recycle the case if you don't remove the battery from it?
If it needs to be removed, then how do you do that without damaging the battery and leaking toxic chemicals in the process? Does Apple have a secret and environmentally way to break down the glue while preserving the structural integrity of the case and batteries? That would be impressive, but wouldn't that enable them to achieve EPEAT certification?
Maybe this new construction can be disassembled, but Apple want exclusive control over the disassembly process while EPEAT requires anyone to be able to disassemble it?
It would be nice if Apple gave out more specific information, and reassuring to those of us who want to be able to buy their products but keep our principles related to protecting the environment.
A better question is, why were they buying Apple products in the first place? They should run on cheapest, shittiest bottom of the barrel Dell laptops, and that's if they have a justification to get a laptop in the first place. They only need to be able to access the web, run Office/Outlook and a few LOB apps. That's it. You don't need a high-end laptop for that! Not for taxpayer money!
If you cannot disassemble them to separate the components, then they are not recyclable.
So if Apple can disassemble them and recycle them (as they do with every product they've ever sold), then they are recyclable. Good, then by everyone's definition, all Apples are recyclable. Can we move on yet?
Learn to love Alaska
It costs them nothing to allow EPEAT ratings to stand for products already rated. They could simply have decided to stop submitting new models for rating, and saved themselves the hassle of negative PR, and grandstanding announements like this from the city of SF
I don't know enough about EPEAT to have an opinion on why, but someone else mentioned that retaining EPEAT rating on a current model would have required Apple to open up their production lines to 3rd party inspectors (espionage). So, rather than submitting to that requirement, they dropped out of the program.
Learn to love Alaska
I agree, i don't know why Apple is moving to the dark side, with the continuous upgrades in their hardware and with the incompatibility between some older hardware and the new OS the number of "obsolete hardware" for the Mac Fans will increase so much.
Orvil Juarez http://www.jacons.net | Linux, Asterisk Call Center and VICIdial Consulting. http://www.orviljuarez.com |
Lion is better than Snow Leopard.
People grumbled about a few things but if you care about the technology at all Lion is really a lot better, and you can tell when you use it day to day also.
Apple is still doing just fine, they simply have more critics trying to bring them down.
Also, I think we'll see the 17" come back at some point....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's exactly it. That's exactly the reason why Apple will go down.
They've become such trolls, that leaving them will make the patent process faults much more obvious.
The fact that that are not is EXACTLY why Apple endures.
And EXACTLY why Apple's continuing success will remain an utter mystery to people like you, until you realize you have the world backwards.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So Apple left EPEAT not because they aren't meeting the requirements, but because they're actually exceeding all of the requirements.
Yes, it's obvious - all Apple products were EPEAT certified before Apple left.
Thus Apple was meeting the requirements, and they left EPEAT.
All of this is public knowledge, why do you argue against it?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Munich has already saved enough money on MS licensing to cover their conversion to Linux.