“Environmentalists are targeting the iPod, Apple Computer’s phenomenally successful digital music player, as a symbol of the growing problem of electronic waste. The Computer Take Back Campaign, an umbrella organization for dozens of environmental groups, is trying to force Apple to beef up its recycling program and to redesign the iPod, which has a battery that can wear out in just 18 months and is not easily replaced,” Joan Lowy reports for Scripps Howard News Service.
“Last month, protesters gathered outside the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters carrying signs that read ‘from iPod to iWaste – toxic trash in your pocket;’ ‘take back your rotten Apples;’ and ‘Dell and HP do, why don’t you?’ Protesters also turned up at the company’s recent Macworld Expo in San Francisco. They have generated thousands of letters to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And they are vowing to bring their complaints to shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in April,” Lowy reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have iPods with much longer than 18 months use on them that have original batteries that are still going strong. Apple has a battery information page here which explains: Apple rechargeable batteries provide a better solution for both your pocketbook and the planet. For instance, if your iPod were powered by 4-AA Alkaline batteries and you used one pack per week (which is conservative), after two years you would have spent over $200 (buying in bulk) and piled up 400 dead batteries for your local recycling center.
Some thoughts:
What was the number of Sony Walkmans purchased over the years? How many have been thrown into the trash?
How many Dull/Creative Junkboxes have been purchased and trashed?
>>>>>>APPLE DOES HAVE A RECYCLING PROGRAM<<<<<<
Do a search of Apple’s Website; they have links to a program for recycling just about any computer or related piece. (Yes, the information does seem to be buried in the depths of the site. It also cost about $30 per box of materials). Don’t know if the company that handles it ships it overseas, but I would hope that Apple has checked them out if they are going to partner with them on this.
If the iPod is such a problem due to its vast number, how about all the material and waste from the billions of copies of Windows that go out. Where is all that material ending up? (97% of the market, huh?)
I didn’t read every comment above, but I didn’t see any that was pro-environment. Sorry kids, but your elecro-gizmos use alot of resources to create and contain heavy metals and other toxins.
Apple should try to recover old and broken machines. Considering their margins, it should be free to give your old or broken system to you local Apple store for recycling. Apple could give usable machines to third-world countries to educate their children and maybe have a chance at a future.
I pay to recycle my elecronics because I care. I sell what I can so I don’t have to throw more in a landfill. My highly-educated wife had to teach me these things I’m ashamed to say, but I hope maybe one of you will change your habits and recycle too.
With Apple becoming suddenly a big global player again, I think there will be increasing pressure for them to be more environmental. Don’t appologize for them. Demand environmental excellence just like you demand design excellence! Apple CAN do it. Of course they can.
Hey, what about Apple’s wireless keyboard and mouse – they take 4 and 2 AA batteries respectively. So, I went out and bought a recharger set which will hopefully save me buying and trashing a few hundred batteries over the life of the product.
Computer companies are bad, but what about these industries for waste:
– household white goods (fridges, washing machines etc) – this stuff used to last 40 years, now you’re lucky to get over 10. Why?
– cars, both manufacture and usage (oil etc)
– home electronics such as hi-fi. What are we up to now? Surround sound at 9.2 (vs the original 5.1 surround sound or even stereo) I am finding that I almost have to throw our my amp every 3 years just to keep up (not that I do replace so often, but good quality amps used to last 15-20 years, at least)
– food packaging/supermarkets. Gone are brown paper bags for the most part, replaced with plastic which takes a million years to break down. What about the product packaging itself? Why can’t I bring my orange juice container from last time in and get it refilled? Glass Milk bottles anyone? We’re not only accumulating trash, but we’re killing ourselves with the plastics leaching. Ever tasted Coca-Cola from a glass bottle vs a plastic/aluminium container? Mmmm, is that what Coke really tastes like? Maybe I’ll switch to Pepsi…
So, these hippies can go !@#$ themselves if they think Apple are responsible for the huge amount of waste generated generated. They are a very small part of a much larger problem. I’d rather see them picket white goods, or supermarkets, which affect nearly everyone, not 20% of the population.
By the way, there is no doubt at all that mandatory recycling will have to take place in every industry. The sooner the better.
I like recycling. In fact, my husband and his buddies recycle my ass almost every night.
Hey Daddy Steve,
The iPod is a much better target than the thousands of other portable players out there for a reason. Its the only player that is actually selling. Not that I agree with the enviro-nazis.
Here’s the email I sent Joan Lowy-
Dear Joan Lowy-
With reference to the article in the link that follows, please have all of your information prior to publishing such crap.
<http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/5009>
I have had a refurbished 10gig iPod for over 18 months and have not had a noticeable drop in battery life. Besides that, there are very inexpensive battery replacements available that make the iPod the extreme opposite of what you portray it to be. It is one of the most environmentally responsible MP3 players on the market. A replacement battery can be had for less than $30. How long will any HD based MP3 player last with $30 worth of AA or AAA batteries? As Napster pointed out-do the math-again! Feel free to respond if you have better information than what is in these links-
<http://www.apple.com/batteries>
<http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipods.html>
<http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Column=Description2&Criteria=ipod+battery&x=18&y=8&Manufacturer;=>
<http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/item/6859/NWTBIPOD1800M12>
<http://www.ipodbattery.com>
Gary Vogt
thevogt@mac.com
gvogtrodeo@aol.com
gvogt@tampabay.rr.com
(one is sure to find me)
Environmentalists won’t be happy until we are all living in caves or trees, becoming vegitarian, growing all our own food organically, walking everywhere we go and practicing sub zero population growth.
They could all help with the population growth thing by killing themselves but then others of their kind would come along and complain about the smell.
G-Spank,
Several times over the last 60,000 years there has been over a mile thick ice sheet that has covered about two thirds of North America, most of Europe and the northern half of Asia.
Each time it happened the earth warmed up enough to melt most of it away.
Each time that vast melting happened there wasn’t an internal combustion engine, gas or coal fired power plant or wood, coal, oil, or gas home heating furnace in existance. Something warmed the earth and it wasn’t us.
We have a damn good reason to be skeptical.
Hey, Al, you !@#$ monkey! Levels of CO2 were once much higher than they are now. It’s not how warm, but how _fast_ it gets warm. It has never gotten so warm so fast as in the last 100 years. So fast, in fact, that NOTHING other than extreme Ozone Hole and increased greenhouse gases, many of which can only be produced by industrial waste, can be the reason. Read the scientific journals, not the political propoganda!
AI, at what point will people like you realize that using science to help limit the impact of our race will be helpful to our survival. I fail to see the downside to setting our sites a little higher in this regard. Yet, the conservatives, and particularly the religious right seems to value making a quick buck at the expense of pollution higher than than creating a world where we respect the planet we live on. You are clearly in this mindset. It boggles my mind that people need to see a massive disaster as a reason to treat nature with the respect it deserves.
There are more phones than pods out there.
—the best for the environment is: less human beings [Harry].
Yes, yes, yes! Go protest to the vatican where the debate on condoms still rages, as does AIDS. Think of the resources used up by an individual in their lifetime: clothing, food, housing, transport, energy…. Think of the degradation of land and decimation of species by encroaching civilization…. Comparatively speaking, the impact of the iPod is negligible. Someone better port one of the millions of Windows viruses over to humans.
Hey, G-Spank:
Stop your anti-religious bigotry. I’m personally not even religious, but your prejudice is disgusting. If you don’t agree with someone, just argue the facts, don’t generalize about the motives of a whole class of people that you clearly don’t understand at all.
RT, you clueless dolt, there’s a big difference between the “religious right” that G-Spank refers to and religion. A big difference.
Grow a skin and learn how to use your brain. Raw emotion only gets you so far, imbecile.
Hmm … religious right … an oxymoron with a pun wrapper rolled up into a generalization.
Well, after reading all the above comments it seems that maybe the protesters achieved their goal of raising awareness concerning the environment. We certainly have been talking about little else for this entire thread. I think maybe I can see why they chose the iPod to protest now.
I consider my post pro-environment. I just believe if you’re going to tackle a problem, it may as well be the biggest threat rather than one that is equivalent to pissing in the wind.
Recent research is showing that global warming is now accelerating, not because the amount of CO2 is increasing massively, but because we’ve cleaned up our act with regards to visible air pollution. Those great big smoky clouds we used to pile out were reflecting a lot of sunlight back into space, masking the true effects of the CO2 rise. So now we need to tackle the other half of the problem fast.
Last time there was a 5% average rise in global temperature, 90% of all species died out. I don’t want people three or four generations down the line going hungry because I didn’t do my bit now. It doesn’t take much effort from each of us for the combined effect to be enormous. Buy a more fuel efficient car (or a motorbike), use less electricity hungry appliances (e.g. Mac mini only uses 29W), and recycle. It isn’t going to cost you the Earth, but it may stop us all doing just that.
BTW, I meant 5 degrees on that post, just couldn’t find the right symbol.
Dave H:
The degrees symbol can be created by typing “°” or “°”
3°
(°)(°)
The issue here is poison chemicals leaking from an iPod battery in a landfill, getting into the rivers and the water table, and coming out of your faucet. This is about people hugging, and unless you all enjoy drinking poison, reducing the amount that gets into your glass is a good thing to do.
There is a good way to go about environmentalism, that involves reason, good science, common sense, and concern for all inhabitants of the planet including people. There are also 1000 bad ways to go about environmentalism, which is why it frequently gets a bad name.
Apple is one of the most benevolent corporations currently, and tends to care a great deal about the environment. When an environmental testing group was begging various computer companies to let it test them on environmental standards of computer waste handling, the other computer companies refused. Apple, who was not asked, volunteered for the test!
Apple uses the best technology available at the time. The iPods are not priced to be disposable, but rather are a major investment. If you have better ideas on how to handle battery recycling, access, disposal, or design, they have a suggestion email link on their site. I suggest using it. Chances are, they will happily listen.
So we should keep pressing, buying, and disposing of billions of CDs instead? How about cassette tape; now that MUST be environmentally friendly strewn across the road.
(° )(° ) … ( °)( °) … ( * )( * )
Don’t they have smileys for every occasion?
Think different?
Are these guys insulting and throwing rocks to environmentalist Mac users? Facts please, facts…not vomiting…
Think different… duhhh !