Gruber ranted about the iFixit's blog article on the difficulty of recycling the new Retina MacBook Pro on at least a couple podcasts - the implication being that the iFixit guy didn't really know what he was talking about with regards to the recycling element.
Let's see if he comes forth with a mea culpa, now that Apple is as much as admitting that their newer models just aren't easily recyclable - otherwise why else would they be pulling the EPEAT certification from their products?
I think Gruber's response was pretty compelling: Apple will recycle any PC/Mac/Phone/iPod at their store or by mail free of charge. http://www.apple.com/recycling/
Following your link, I see that Apple contracts with "Sims Recycling Solutions" to recycle their computers.
Here's what Sims has to say about the new Apple Systems:
""Sealed units [like the iPad] make it difficult to remove the batteries," Steve Skurnac, president of SIMS Recycling Solutions, said in a statement. "From a recycler's point of view, the hazardous components [like batteries] need to be easily separated or removed.""
If Apple is contracting with third parties to recycle systems, and those third parties don't know how to recycle the glass with an adhesive on it - then there is an issue. [Edit - In their interview, iFixit called out in particular the difficulty separating the battery from the Retina MacBook Pro case - the same concern of the President of Apple's recycling company. http://ifixit.org/2884/apple-ditches-green-standard-cuts-off...]
I just think Gruber (a podcast that I listen to, so it's clear where my biases lay) should have given a bit more credibility to Kyle Wiens. The iFixit guys know a lot about the material elements of hardware, and he did take the time to contact people in the recycling industry before making his comments.
In most cities there are shops that will replace cracked screens, do basic damage repair etc on iPads, iPods, iPhones etc. They seem to manage just fine with the units being glued.
When replacing a part the glue poses no issue. But recycling a part is different. The glue that is bonded to the glass etc can be difficult to remove, as is claimed above. Full removal is necessary to ensure the recycled product is not contaminated.
Moving beyond that, this raises the cost of recycling the glass, which in turn raises the cost of buying the recycled glass. This makes it a less attractive deal to manufacturers than new glass, thus giving companies less incentive to process the glass with glue.
Well yeah, there's the problem that glass is trivially easy to manufacture from sand, and the amount of labor and energy use to remove and process these screens is greater than the savings, especially since most glass these days that is sent for recycling is thrown into giant mountains of unwanted glass that is never used by anyone. Also, if you have to use a bunch of highly toxic solvents that are dangerous to work with so people can by hand remove the glue before even getting to that point, one may reasonably ask what exactly about this process is green.
most glass these days that is sent for recycling is thrown into giant mountains of unwanted glass that is never used by anyone.
That isn't generally true, mostly because it is valuable as long as you have glass production nearby. The UK does have a mountain of green glass as it drinks loads of wine but doesn't produce much. But this is apparently quite unusual, at least according to the Economist. - http://www.economist.com/node/9249262
All things considered, who really cares about the glass. Glass is not toxic. Throw it in a landfill. The batteries are what you want to get, that's where the nasty stuff is. And what kind of glue are we talking about? Something so strong that you can't pry it apart? Seems kind of unlikely, but I don't know. I'd imagine something more like a semi-flexible rubber cement.
I believe the batteries are the big problem. With respect to the glue, ifixit reports:
Electronics recyclers need to take out hazardous components such as batteries before sending computers through their shredders, because batteries can catch fire when punctured.
When we originally tore down the Retina MacBook Pro, we could not separate the battery from the upper case. The next day, after a lot of elbow grease, we were finally able to get them apart—but in the process punctured the battery, leaking hazardous goo all over.
They are fairly practiced at taking things apart, including delicate and glued-together equipment, so I'd conclude that it is a fairly strong and difficult to work with glue.
iFixit evaluates for repairability, not for recyclability.
For example, on http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-with-Retina-Displ... they state "
To complicate matters further, the TrackPad cable lies underneath the battery. Attempting to pry the battery off the upper case could easily sever the fragile cable, which would be bad." That is of no concern when recycling the device.
So, is there a problem recycling these new devices? I would guess so, but I do not rule out that there is a simple process to separate these parts, e.g. by heating them to a certain temperature, putting them in a microwave just long enough, or by taking apart the battery before removing it from the glass. A dedicated recycler could use some specialist procedure for recycling these things. I do doubt that that would be economically feasible, though. The amount of glass involved is just too small.
Also, chances are that that will lead to lower degree of recycling, just as white glass can be recycled better than green or brown glass, and as car windshields, being layered with some plastic, can be recycled, but likely not into new car windshields.
Why not, as long as that 'certain temperature' is well below the temperature at which the battery spontaneously ignites? Also, for recycling, one could deplete the battery before trying to separate its container from the other parts.
I still think these things will get recycled into low-quality stuff such as concrete filler, but as I said, I do not rule out that there is a relatively easy way to separate the parts that iFixit does not know about.
That would work fine in a lab, but is way too expensive for recycling.
Those ovens with accurate temperature control and very expensive, and pretty small. And manually hooking up each battery to a discharging station is far too complicated to do in bulk.
You don't need to recycle anything at all as "concrete filler" sand works just fine.
Not all use glue, and It is possible that apple is changing its glue and/or using more.
Most likely both. Maybe they have new glue and glue remover and want to make sure all repairs go through them, because only they have the secret glue remover.
But that would be far fetched maybe?
/speculations
"The glue that is bonded to the glass etc can be difficult to remove, as is claimed above. Full removal is necessary to ensure the recycled product is not contamination."
Don't most recyclers just toss everything in a big shredder, run the bits and pieces through mechanical separators, and smelt each stream of fragments. It's not like bottle recyclers get all bent out of shape if there is still glue and labels on the bottles.
Which doesn't mean the Mac is actually made of recyclable material, it just means that Apple does the dirty work for you; they throw out the non-recyclables and may (or may not) recycle the recyclables.
While this may allow Apple's customers to retain a larger amount of "warm and fuzzies", it probably doesn't pass muster for a person who is seriously concerned about environmentalism.
The certification is about easy recyclability not about recyclability in general. While it could be taken that they are saying their products are not recyclable anymore one could also say that they are just accepting that they aren't recyclable with standard tools anymore. Given the new retina laptops this definitely makes sense and its nice to see them volunteering to remove themselves before being removed by the organisation.
It sounds like products are certified on a product-by-product basis, and this decision was more about not wanting consumers to wonder/worry about why one Mac laptop was certified and another wasn’t.
No, it's about trying to kill the standard. Many institutions can only buy epeat certified hardware. If the standard doesn't say what Apple wants it to say, then Apple will stop them from buying any of their products, even the ones that comply. Should be an interesting standoff.
That means nothing. That just means that Apple will dispose of your stuff for you and give you that warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you "did the right thing". But is there any guarantee that your item doesn't just end up in a landfill?
It's not a guarantee :) But if you think for 5 minutes about how you would go about decreasing the volume and the toxicity of the electronics that gets landfilled every year, you might come to realize (like I did) that what EPEAT is doing is a more effective way to reach your hypothetical goal than a corporation's undertaking to take old products off the hands of consumers if the consumers bring them to their retail stores. (It's more effective because there're so many ways that the corporation can directly or indirectly put the old products on a boat to China or India.)
"Apple meets the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. All e-waste collected by Apple-controlled voluntary and regulatory programs worldwide is processed in the region in which it was collected. Our recyclers must comply with all health and safety laws, and we do not allow the use of prison labour. Apple recyclers do not dispose of hazardous electronic waste in solid-waste landfills or incinerators. For an example of the stringent processing and operational controls Apple places on its directly contracted recyclers, read an excerpt from our recycler requirements agreement [PDF]."
"Apple will recycle any PC/Mac/Phone/iPod at their store or by mail free of charge."
Apple will accept and transfer any such unit. That doesn't mean the unit actually gets recycled when it goes out Apple's back door. The recycling contractor may recycle 100% of the unit, or some lesser percentage.
If you gave Jobs the choice between making a better product or having a government issued Green certification - you think he'd pick the certification...
If anything this is incredibly Jobs-ian as it's obvious that Cook isn't cow-towing to big business and Government organizations that now won't be able to buy their products.
From a strategic standpoint I see more recycling incentives coming for users over the next few months. They're having trouble keeping the "Apple Refurbished" shelves stocked - I can definitely see their high end refurbished line becoming their version of a "budget" line for low-end consumers.
From a strategic standpoint I see more recycling incentives coming for users over the next few months. They're having trouble keeping the "Apple Refurbished" shelves stocked
Bingo. Apple has no incentive to help anyone else disassemble and repurpose their products, while methinks their refurb unit can use all the components they can recover.
otherwise why else would they be pulling the EPEAT certification from their products?
Apple probably did not see certification as important to its future growth. Apple was probably also dealing with pressure for EPEAT - and decided the hassle just wasn't worth it. Dropping governing bodies is never an easy decision, but Apple has so much influence already, that it's difficult to say whether trends will follow Apple, or stay with EPEAT. Considering Apple actually provides the value, my bet is on the former.
Let's see if he comes forth with a mea culpa, now that Apple is as much as admitting that their newer models just aren't easily recyclable - otherwise why else would they be pulling the EPEAT certification from their products?