Apple Promotes Recycling Your Devices 'For Free' Ahead of Earth Day

[delsoul]

Right… theyll take your device for free…then get all of the parts out of it and then make a profit off of your loss. No, thanks.

 

[fatTribble]

You'd think Apple could at least give you a $10 gift card for every unusable iPhone, iPad, or Mac you turn in to them.

I totally agree.
But I also think people would complain that they only get $10

 

[needsomecoffee]

My gold iPhone 6 Plus was a star in this video. Literally just replaced the battery yesterday. Taking the old battery to the recycler today. Keeping the 6P alive as I wait for Apple's technical and engineering expertise revealed in Apple's OPTIONAL Fairphone-styled models. Thanks Lisa/Tim/Octavia for putting Mother Earth ahead of optimized profits (yeah, yeah, yeah... shareholder value...)

 

[iksretep]

I know a lot are screaming something along the lines of "I won't give it up/recycle for free" ... but I recycled quite a bit of PCs/Macs and whatever back in my IT days, and each time doing so had to pay a per device recycling fee ... could this whole "free" mean that you don't have to pay a penny to recycle that 20y/o or so device and dispose of it properly?

 

[RMo]

Wonder why MR put "for free" in quotes.

Because it's a direct quote from the Apple page they linked to:

 

[Bigkool2inSC]

recycling is definitely not a money making effort for any industry..
If it was, everything that could be recycled and reused, would be.

 

[con2apple]

They do offer "for money" though.

Really? Where? Show me. 👀

I would sell my old MBP 2011 with bloated battery. Or two iPhone 5 and 6 models from the cupboard.

What will I get from Apple for that?
I am so excited to hear 🤩

 

[d-klumpp]

A great business strategy is when you can sell something, once outdated or damaged, etc.., get the buyer to give it back to you, and then make a new product with those from the returned item and sell that new product to the same customer.

Is that a suggestion that their recycling effort is a net monetary gain? I would suggest that materials are recovered by Apple at a net loss (person hours to collect, transportation, process development, etc.) and that the only significant gain is in PR, maybe. But not here on MacRumors, where any environmental effort is met with derision.

 

[tornadowrangler]

I don't have a problem with them recycling them "for free." I just can't imagine how anyone thought it was a good idea to specify it.

Oh, but as some people will say, they are Apple and they know better than any of us.

 

[BGPL]

Super clever... this is the really tricky stuff you learn when you get into post-grad marketing.

 

[FeliApple]

I don’t find the offer bad. Apple can offer whatever they like. It just makes no sense as a user. I have an iPhone 5c in a drawer that’s been obliterated by updates that can’t be rolled back. It works very poorly. It has 8GB. It’s good enough as an Apple Music-enabled player, so it has some value for me, even if it’s only useful as a music playback device. Nobody would buy that device now, Apple certainly wouldn’t, and rather than give it to Apple I’d rather keep it.

 

[thenahon]

Looks like the image is rotated 90º to the right

 

[TechnoTiger3000]

Really? Where? Show me. 👀

I would sell my old MBP 2011 with bloated battery. Or two iPhone 5 and 6 models from the cupboard.

What will I get from Apple for that?
I am so excited to hear 🤩

Never stated that all models are included in trade in program.

 

[Premium1]

Ah yes, give apple something back where they can profit from and the end user gets nothing out of.. So much courage by Apple.

 

[sir1963nz]

How about trying a better "green" solution, the one that worked well for a century and more in the real world.
Upgrade
Repair
and then in LAST place, disposal.

 

[SkippyThorson]

Apple, how about you stop making planned obsolescence part of your business strategy. Your hardware can last 20+ years, so focus on your software quality and stop chasing shareholder value at the expense of consumer value.

20 years, eh?

I can hear… My 2004 1.33ghz PPC iBook… It speaks to me from the hoard the great beyond.

It says to me… Please. Please don’t put me back into service.

The 3G cellular network also just rang me up. It would also like a word with you. Just kidding! See what I did there?! 3G Humor.

20 (Twenty) years is reaching for personal computing tech, and that’s putting it mildly. Lasting, sure; but useful?

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

This is as bad as them removing the chargers in iPhones bECaUse EnVirOnmEnT.

 

[allenvanhellen]

Give us $1-$2 gift card credit for each item at least.

 

[farmboy]

"give us your stuff, so we can make the money from it"..... erm, thanks....

By all means, take it to the nearest garbage dump, and have to pay them for the privilege. Makes sense, financially and environmentally.

 

[Mrjoedot]

If Apple could pay me for bringing recycle materials, no matter what, that would be great. even as little as a USD for a broken lightning cable.

 

[farmboy]

20 years, eh?

I can hear… My 2004 1.33ghz PPC iBook… It speaks to me from the hoard the great beyond.

It says to me… Please. Please don’t put me back into service.

The 3G cellular network also just rang me up. It would also like a word with you. Just kidding! See what I did there?! 3G Humor.

20 (Twenty) years is reaching for personal computing tech, and that’s putting it mildly. Lasting, sure; but useful?

I still have fourteen Macs dating back to 1984. They all still work except for a Mac II that needs a RAM chip. Sold several more that were working at that time. Getting online problematic with most, but functional in terms of apps and docs.

 

[frownface]

wake me up if they ever offer a program to refurbish/repair/update (for a nominal fee) your old device so you can continue to use it instead of discarding it.

 

[sc00ba]

Yeah sure Tim, now we're paying laptop prices for phones in Australia, we'll most certainly give you our $2000 phones back for free instead of handing them down to family members, or even selling them to make some of that money back that you've almost extorted from us because we know Android is a joke and are locked into the ecosystem, not mention when we need to upgrade our phones once they slow right down from the yearly software updates and ridiculous bugs.

Such an altruistic company looking out for the human race and Mother Earth🙄

 

[svish]

Apple Trade in offers convenience. Other than that always sell elsewhere to get much better price for the old device. No reason to give it free. Might be able to get at least some money if selling somewhere else.

 

[aknabi]

A great business strategy is when you can sell something, once outdated or damaged, etc.., get the buyer to give it back to you, and then make a new product with those from the returned item and sell that new product to the same customer.

South Park did a whole episode on this business model (using the Cash for Gold example)... Tim must have see it and asked the team "How do we get our customers doing this with our gold?"

Season 16, Ep. 2 - Cash For Gold - Full Episode | South Park ...