Amazon and Apple 'Not Playing Their Part' in Tackling Electronic Waste (theguardian.com) 74
Global giants such as Amazon and Apple should be made responsible for helping to collect, recycle and repair their products to cut the 155,000 tonnes of electronic waste being thrown away each year in the UK, MPs say. From a report: An investigation by the environmental audit committee found the UK is lagging behind other countries and failing to create a circular economy in electronic waste. The UK creates the second highest levels of electronic waste in the world, after Norway. But MPs said the UK was not collecting and treating much of this waste properly. "A lot of it goes to landfill, incineration or is dumped overseas. Under current laws producers and retailers of electronics are responsible for this waste, yet they are clearly not fulfilling that responsibility," the MPs wrote. About 40% of the UK's e-waste is sent abroad, according to estimates -- something the MPs point out is often done illegally.
The tsunami of electronic waste was throwing away valuable resources vital to a sustainable future, the report published on Thursday said. Globally, thrown-away computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic waste have a potential value of $62.5bn each year from the precious metals they contain, including gold, silver, copper, platinum and other critical raw materials such as tungsten and indium. MPs accused online retailers including Amazon and eBay of freeriding as they are not considered retailers or producers, and are therefore not legally liable to contribute to the collection and recycling of e-waste. "For all their protestations of claimed sustainability, major online retailers and marketplaces such as Amazon have so far avoided playing their part in the circular economy by not collecting or recycling electronics in the way other organisations have to," MPs said. "Given the astronomical growth in sales by online vendors, particularly this year during the coronavirus pandemic, the EAC calls for online marketplaces to collect products and pay for their recycling to create a level playing field with physical retailers and producers that are not selling on their platforms."
The tsunami of electronic waste was throwing away valuable resources vital to a sustainable future, the report published on Thursday said. Globally, thrown-away computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic waste have a potential value of $62.5bn each year from the precious metals they contain, including gold, silver, copper, platinum and other critical raw materials such as tungsten and indium. MPs accused online retailers including Amazon and eBay of freeriding as they are not considered retailers or producers, and are therefore not legally liable to contribute to the collection and recycling of e-waste. "For all their protestations of claimed sustainability, major online retailers and marketplaces such as Amazon have so far avoided playing their part in the circular economy by not collecting or recycling electronics in the way other organisations have to," MPs said. "Given the astronomical growth in sales by online vendors, particularly this year during the coronavirus pandemic, the EAC calls for online marketplaces to collect products and pay for their recycling to create a level playing field with physical retailers and producers that are not selling on their platforms."
Amazon is not a retailer or producer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't they change the law so that "retailer" includes online sales?
At the very least, Amazon has to be considered a producer for their own Amazon-branded products (ex: Fire tablets, etc).
eBay (Score:2)
And eBay isn't even a retailer. Asking them to handle e-waste would like asking Craigslist to handle the garbage from all the stuff that people can't sell in the garage sales they advertise on the site.
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Auctions are only a small part of eBay now. They serve mostly as a shop-front for businesses that sell on eBay, much as Amazon does. So if you buy some electrical tat off of eBay, they are the middleman, and the seller is another company entirely. One that might not even be in the same country as the buyer.
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Oil, Batteries, Lightbulbs, most of those are the same.
Gasoline/Kerosine and brake fluid are kind of a PITA to get to a recycler but it can be done.
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Basically, government should be funding research to liquefy electronic waste, drain off the liquid plastics and collect and clean the metal for refining. Industrial recycling, the process of breaking down the waste and extracting valuable materials as it progresses down the 'er' de-production line to become a pile of clean safe fertiliser that can be sold.
All the waste from a city should go there, to be mined and refined, zero waste cities. The research needs to be done, funded by government, taxing the sou
Apple (Score:2)
Re: Apple (Score:1)
Jesus, what Louis Rossman would have given for that machine! :)
All he'd needed is to hire a few Foxconn employees for OEM assembly, and he'd be set.
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They do offer a discount nowadays. But what happens to the old phones they get I don't know.
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That was in the news recently when one of the companies tasked with taking them apart instead sold the stuff..
But as Apple has refurbished equipment for sale I guess some are actually sold as such.
Re: Apple RRR (Score:2)
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Re: Apple (Score:3)
Are you serious? No one has any trouble finding 2nd hand parts for Apple electronics because their so prolific. In addition there are third party manufacturers who will supply parts. I had an Apple iPhone 4! repaired recently and the repairer have me a shiny new back for free from a 3rd party manufacturer.
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Re: Apple (Score:1)
Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
How did Apple get attached to this. They have had a serious recycling program for years although most apple devices are reused more than recycled including this phone.
Re: Huh (Score:3, Informative)
Ae you living in a parallel dimension?
Cause in this one, Apple products are deliberately impossible to separate into their components. let alone without destruction. And ... re-use? You can't even reset it to factory state anymore without the code of its former owner. Too bad if you forgot yours, or died. You'll be lucky if you can still de-assing you as its lifelong partner soon.
Sorry, you fell for "marketing" ... aka lies.
But falling for a delusion is Apple's business model, after all.
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Apple products are deliberately impossible to separate into their components. let alone without destruction.
Bullshit. When you're talking recycling, you obviously destroy the product.
It's about salvaging materials from end-of-life electronics. Now, obviously, your definition of EOL may differ from Apple's ideas, but that's not relevant in this case.
Apple has their own recycle robot, Daisy [cnet.com], which can take up to 200 iphones apart every hour [fastcompany.com]. That's more recycling efforts than any other major tech company that I'm aware of.
I wonder how many UK companies have similar programs. My guess is none. They're all abou
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No, this is not about attacking successful companies. It's about making sure everyone, including, but not limited to [insert famous company here] follows reasonable rules. Certain companies have been acting like they're above the law, and that needs to stop.
You have no idea what the USSR was like, if you think the EU and USSR are in any way comparable.
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Nevertheless Apple is taking back all of its products, since more than a decade.
And that was the topic.
And this: Apple products are deliberately impossible to separate into their components. let alone without destruction. is nonsense.
And this: You can't even reset it to factory state anymore without the code of its former owner. is even more nonsense.
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And this: You can't even reset it to factory state anymore without the code of its former owner. is even more nonsense.
Well, to be fair, it is impossible to activate a used phone if it has not been properly released by its previous owner, at least without Apple's intervention. That most of these cases concern theft (keyword: "Icloud locked"), is of course not relevant to the average Apple-hater.
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My old phone is to old for that.
My new one obviously only I can reset, or set into "reset" mode.
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I had the iPad 2 and enjoyed it somewhat, but it is not worth getting another one.
Can I get cash for the trash?
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No, but you can give it back instead of throwing it into the trash.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
According to TFA the problem is that Apple makes their products out of glue and in a way that prevents them being cost effectively repaired. Even something as basic as changing the battery is expensive and with damage it's often cheaper to just throw the device away and buy a new one.
Remember that throw it away and buy a new one was Apple's official advice until the "iPod's dirty little secret" campaign. Their current recycling claims are dubious too, that video of the disassembly robot was fake and in fact most of an iPhone ends up in landfill.
Re: Huh (Score:1)
Are you a time traveler from the past? Havenâ(TM)t seen or heard of anybody replacing a battery in the last decade. Except for possibly ones that were defective off the bat which would be replaced under warranty. And itâ(TM)s not exactly really hard to replace one on an iPhone not a simple task for the average person but somebody who knows what theyâ(TM)re doing and do it in five minutes there is a repair shop in every town thatâ(TM)ll do it.Nobody will replace a battery in those other p
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One of the worst things about these hard to replace batteries is that you need to go without your device for at least a few days, often longer.
Can't just slip another one in, you have to do without for a week or more while you send it off for surgery.
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HavenÃ(TM)t seen or heard of anybody replacing a battery in the last decade. ... so ...
I have replaced my MacBook Airs Battery 2 years ago, and will do again na month.
And replaced my iPhone 4S battery 2 times over the last 10 year
Funny, I got a black friday deal offer today for an Samsung A20 Galaxy today for 150â prepaid, for one year. No idea about its battery, though.
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On my Gemini, thanks to a bad design, I can't even insert an uSD card without removing the battery.
Before that, for many years I went through two N900, which had notoriously short battery lives, so I carried charged extras with me. Once even had to pop in a fresh one in pitch darkness (during a trip through an old asphalt mine).
So any good phone does have a removable battery.
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Replacing the battery of an iPhone, depending on the model, costs either $49 or $69. I wouldn't call that expensive. Specially when the cheapest iPhone costs $399.
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Well, for my old iPhone 4S it is $10.
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Why throw it out when Apple recycles for free?? (Score:1)
Even something as basic as changing the battery is expensive and with damage it's often cheaper to just throw the device away and buy a new one.
Even if that were true, which it is not generally (Apple battery replacement is reasonable) Apple takes in any Apple device to recycle for free, even if you didn't want store credit for it.
Re: Huh (Score:2)
The report calls for:
The right to repair to be enshrined in law.
A reduction in VAT on the repair of electrical and electronic products, as takes place in other countries.
All producers to be forced to collect products and pay for their recycling.
Ambitious long-term targets for collection, reuse and recycling of e-waste to focus on reducing consumption and capturing and retaining vital raw materials.
Ok, do it, I dare you. The first one is a feel good measure, the second one is like lowering sales tax on repairs? The third and fourth Apple has a head start on already and will hurt competitors a lot more than Apple.
I'm not saying it isn't a good plan to increase recycling and reuse, but framing Apple as the boogeyman in this story doesn't help you sell "reducing consumption" to everyone else, the free phone with contract renewal bunch, for example.
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Re:Huh (Score:5, Informative)
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It shouldn't be waste in the first place. (Score:1, Offtopic)
By making it long-lasting, free of designed-in defects (loke glass backs, soldered-in batteries, DRM, etc), modular, compatible with universal standards, repairable, reusable, and only THEN easily, fully and completely recycled (not just -able or in theory) an infinite number of times. (Looking at you, plastics industry.)
I want that to be the law.
(If everybody has to do it, nobody can undercut a good businesses in price by mooching a the planet which has to pay the price in any case.)
And I want to have the
marketplaces (Score:2)
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EU right to repair 'scheme' installed (Score:2)
This. [ifixit.com]
$62.5bn, aye? (Score:2)
That's the amount said waste is likely to be worth after it's been collected, transported to processing, actually being processed, along with other steps along the way.
The problem, that the people demanding this happen ignore, is the cost of that collecting, transporting and processing, which is likely to be well in excess of that final $62.5bn.
Which is why people must be forced into doing this collecting, transporting and processing. If it were profitable, people wouldn't need a
Re: $62.5bn, aye? (Score:2)
Let me dump small e-waste with my plastic waste (Score:2)
AFAIK plastic waste has near universal separate collection in the UK, as in my country. Tin/drink cans already go with the plastic and get sorted, why not add e-waste and let the robots sort it out?
I'm too f'ing lazy to return it to the seller, it doesn't matter what they do. I'll drive it to the appropriate container at the communal waste centre every couple years, but I doubt everyone does. Don't make recycling too difficult for the normies.
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Plastic can't really be recycled. It doesn't work chemically. It can be downcycled, at best - made into another, low-grade product. Your recycled drinks bottles don't turn into more drinks bottles, they turn into carpeting and truck-bed liner. When those are recycled, they are just turned into energy by throwing them into the incinerator.
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Hydrolysis and pyrolysis can get back valuable inputs, but the economics require very cheap energy. Very cheap energy will likely also be the only way to ever reclaim non precious metals from complex waste streams (for instance, first pyrolysis to get rid of the plastic, then melt everything down and then use metallurgical magic to get back pure metals).
Regardless of the economics, we already have separate plastic collection and sorting. So add small e-waste to it, sort it and landfill it separetely, till w
Isn't that the government's job? (Score:2)
So wait, the government contracts with private providers to collect trash. Why don't they charge every manufacturer for trash? Why single out electronic manufacturers and online retailers?
Just add the fee onto the VAT. That's what the VAT is for, so you can hide taxes in it.
Re: Isn't that the government's job? (Score:2)
And how about the avalanche of green energy waste? (Score:1)
Just let me change the effin battery (Score:3)
I'm not a power user. I play a dumb game, text a lot, and do very few phone calls. A 10 year old phone would work just fine for me.
In other words, if I could have replaced my battery 10 years ago I'd have bought 1 new phone, instead of 3. Which pretty much says why I can't buy a phone with a replacable battery.
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They just want you to buy newer phones. :(
Amazon is the culprit? (Score:2)
Few facilities for disposal (Score:2)
Electronics recycling facilities are very poor in the UK, even when other recycling (paper, glass, metals, etc) is good. Drop-off points for electronics are almost non-existent while recycling centres that accept electronics (as well as garden waste, construction waste, wood, large appliances, etc) are often out of town (so no good if you don't have a car) and currently have very limited visitor capacity (since March 2020 with no end in sight, all blamed on the coronavirus).
My city, of 250000 people or so,
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Electronics recycling facilities are very poor in the UK, even when other recycling (paper, glass, metals, etc) is good. Drop-off points for electronics are almost non-existent while recycling centres that accept electronics (as well as garden waste, construction waste, wood, large appliances, etc) are often out of town (so no good if you don't have a car) and currently have very limited visitor capacity (since March 2020 with no end in sight, all blamed on the coronavirus).
accessible only by car (literally: it is forbidden to walk into the site, you can only enter in a vehicle)
That is crap. If I did not have a car, it would be essentially impossible for me to do the right thing with any broken electronic item (which these days, we must remember, even includes light bulbs).
The situation is the same even here in "liberal" Los Angeles. In the before times they had events like 2-3 times per year when you could drop off to one site in the entire city and you could only enter by vehicle and pop your trunk. That was the before times. I don't think they're even open now because of coronavirus.
Apple.. (Score:2)
Number one maker of very expensive disposable appliances, so not surprised.
Just dont mention this to the rabid fanbois at Ars, they will have a cow.
Shocked (Score:1)
Re: Shocked (Score:2)
I found that unbelievable too.
I presume it is one of those misleading statements, like "one is born every minute", when they mean "on average". In this case, they surely mean, "per capita"?
2nd highest... after Norway!? (Score:3)
> The UK creates the second highest levels of electronic waste in the world, after Norway
Surely that cannot be true. It must be "per capita" or something.
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Well, yes looks like it is, but you don't expect to have facts from journalists.
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No they aren't (Score:2)
They are doing everything to accelerate e waste.
Amazon and apple exist and only exist to make money and to make more money.
The more products you buy the more Apple and Amazon money they make, they don't care about the quality or the amount of waste the products generate.
Amazon currently throws anyway millions of dollars of returns.
Apple tries to sell you a cellphone every two years through software upgrades, crippling phones\batteries, and expensive repairs (or making it so people can't repair their phones
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The tech exists to make a phone that would last twenty years. It just isn't done because the phone would have to be bigger and heavier than people will buy. It's not just the desire to sell more phones that drives disposable design: It's the market pressure to make them smaller, lighter, and slimmer than anyone else. Replacable batteries went away because they add three more sheets of plastic to the phone, and so another millimeter to the thickness.
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And yet I can't change the battery in my phone
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To make a phone with a changeable battery means enclosing the battery in a rigid protective case, which adds at least two layers of plastic. Another millimeter of thickness.
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Not on the galaxy s5, there was a small amount of padding around the battery, but it didn't make the phone thicker. I'd rather have a removable battery anyway.
Force Apple to take back their waste (Score:2)
oh, they already do!
Well, then make up some nonsense with the word Apple in it.
Not Only Apple and Amazon (Score:2)
All of the companies should be held responsible (Score:2)
What is Blog or Blogging? (Score:1)