Belkin is switching to make its top-selling mobile power products out of 73% to 75% post-consumer recycled plastics. The change will make no difference to the appearance or price of the accessories, but will significantly reduce the company’s carbon emissions.
PCR versions of the poplar chargers will launch throughout 2023.
If you think something that’s “compostable” must be easily “destructible,” well, that may be true of your coffee filters. But it’s not true of everything. Take Casetify’s Ultra Compostable iPhone Cases, for example.
These things are tough as hell. They’ll protect your iPhone as well as many other iPhone cases. And the ultimate beauty of them is, once you move on to another iPhone and discard the case, it won’t hurt the environment.
For the first time, Apple is putting certified recycled gold in the iPhone. It’s part of the company’s increased use of recycled content across its products. Because of these efforts, nearly 20% of all material used in Apple products in 2021 was recycled, a new high point for the company.
“As people around the world join in celebrating Earth Day, we are making real progress in our work to address the climate crisis and to one day make our products without taking anything from the earth,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, in a press release Tuesday.
Apple also added a new shredderbot that rips apart audio modules to its robot recycling crew.
Podswap takes AirPods nearing the end of their useful life and replaces them with a fresh pair. And the recycling service costs considerably less than Apple charges to replace these wireless earbuds.
Plus, anyone using the service can take comfort knowing that their old AirPods will be recycled, not thrown away.
A Canadian company that had agreed to disassemble and recycle iPhones, iPad, and Apple Watches allegedly sold over 100,000 of them instead. Geep admitted the products were sold not recycled, but blames the theft on three of its employees.
During the 2020 Summer Olympics games in Tokyo, metal from your old smartphone might get draped around winners’ necks.
Tokyo unveiled its Olympic medals made from recycled phones and other used electronics. They’re so beautiful that you’d never guess they’re made out of e-waste.
Take a closer look:
Apple’s efforts to be the greenest company in tech continue with a major expansion to its global recycling programs.
It will be easier than ever for customers to send old iPhone units off for recycling. Apple is also opening a new Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas. The lab will use robots and machine learning to improve the company’s recycling processes.
Apple goes back to the basics in a new set of ads today uploaded to YouTube.
Doing away with fancy effects, catchy music, and even its own hardware, it highlights some of the key features of Face ID and iOS 12. It also promotes its smartphone recycling program that’s open to all handsets — even if they’re not iPhones.
You’ve just pre-ordered your new iPhone, and you’re wondering what to do with the old one. Selling it is a pain, and the trade-in prices on your two-year-old model are too low to bother with. So how about handing that old iPhone off to a family member, or a friend? But before you just switch it off and drop it into a bag, there are a few things you should prepare. Here’s how.
The new iPhone has almost arrived, and for Cult of Mac readers that means one thing — time to ditch the old iPhone to make way for the new. But what should you do with that old iPhone? Today we’ll look at the options, from selling it, to recycling it, to giving it away. Here’s how to sell your old iPhone.
Apple’s loveable robot Liam has been fired.
As part of Apple’s Earth Day 2018 initiative, the company unveiled Liam’s replacement today named Daisy. The new robot borrows some of the technology from Liam to make an even more efficient iPhone disassembly machine.
Take a look:
If you just got a new Apple Watch Series 3 (or are about to), you should think about trading in your old watch.
Cult of Mac has a popular gadget buyback program that pays more for used Apple Watches than competing trade-in services, and it’s a lot easier and safer than Craigslist or eBay.
Earth Day 2017 has long since passed but Apple’s still not done busting out its quirky videos that celebrate the company’s green environmental protection initiatives.
In Apple’s latest hand-drawn ad published today, the company showcased its efforts to preserve forests so that the paper used in all of its packaging is done in a sustainable way. With a goal of preserving nearly 1 million acres of forest by 2020, Apple hopes 99% of the fibers and papers will come responsible sources and recycling.
Watch Lisa Jackson explain:
At long last, your local Apple Store has the iPhone 7 in stock.
The jet black one you preordered three weeks ago is finally shipping.
You’ve had the 7 Plus for 10 days, but wanted to keep a backup just in case your new phone spontaneously burst into flames.
Whatever your reason for not selling your old device yet, now is the perfect time to cash it in before prices drop further.
We recently launched a gadget buyback program that promises to pay more for used and broken Apple devices than Gazelle, Walmart and even Apple itself. This post is about the startup company we partnered with to bring you this service.
A college friend who bought a new phone and was about to trash a defunct iPhone 3G sparked the idea for MyPhones Unlimited, a smartphone recycling service that Cult of Mac recently partnered with.
“Two main thoughts came to mind,” says MyPhones Unlimited founder Gabe Trumbo. “One is that that can’t be good for that to just be thrown away, there has got to be a better way to recycle it. And beyond that, I’m sure there’s still some value in it.”
He was right. Trading in his friend’s phone himself, Trumbo got a bigger chunk of change than he expected — and immediately saw a market coupled to an important problem.
Liam, Apple’s robot that deconstructs iPhones to mine the valuable resources inside them, is certainly cool — but he’s still not the recycling machine we deserve (or need).
Just like any Apple product, Liam was designed to work well. But how much good does the robot, which took three years to develop and build, actually do?
Today is Earth Day. That’s good news for the environment — and great news for your wallet!
To celebrate, we’re offering an extra $10 for every product sold on our gadget buyback program through the end of the weekend. Just use the promo code “earthday” when you get your quote and you’ll grab the extra green.
As part of Apple’s continued focus on the environment, Apple Stores will soon ditch their instantly recognizable plastic bags for new paper ones made of 80 percent recycled materials.
The official changeover happens April 15, although stores will continue to use the old plastic bags until they run out of stock. The new bags come in both medium and large sizes.
Consumers have a nasty habit of throwing out their electronics as soon as newer, shinier models become available, and they rarely ever do so properly. Nearly 42 million tons of e-waste — everything from microwaves and electric shavers to washing machines, laptops, cellphones, TVs and computer monitors — entered the global garbage stream in 2014, according to a United Nations University report.
Like all trash, this stuff doesn’t just disappear. Instead, it stacks up in landfills. Unlike most trash, however, e-waste is often packed with valuable components — as well as toxic chemicals and materials that can cause real damage wherever they end up.
Because even the newest devices get stepped on and dropped in toilets, Cult of Mac’s buyback program has been updated to include the latest Apple products.
Kyle Wiens thinks the iPad should be banned. It’s a “highly immoral” product, he says, because it can’t be opened and repaired when the battery dies. It’s a throwaway device, and he wants governments to prohibit it.
“It’s not designed to be long-lasting,” said Wiens, who is the co-founder and CEO of iFixit. “It’s like selling a car that has to be replaced when the tires wear out.”
Wiens is the Bernie Sanders of the electronics industry. He doesn’t just want reform — he wants revolution!
Here’s why.
iFixit has made repairing broken iPhones as simple as setting up Ikea furniture thanks to the site’s easy-to-follow guides and excellent repair tools Apple doesn’t really want you to use. Now the company is about make it easier to fix even more broken gadgets by partnering with Electronic Recyclers International.
Finding parts to fix broken Kindles, GoPros, and Nexus devices can be practically impossible, but now that iFixit and ERI are teaming up, consumers will have a way to keep more of their busted gizmos alive, instead of tossing them in the wood chipper.
Back in 2008, when Apple was selling roughly a tenth of the number of iPhones it sells today, the company produced a limited number of giant-sized display iPhones with built-in 30-inch Cinema Displays to show off its new line of smartphones.
Most of them were destroyed after the promotion was finished, but thanks to the wonderful world of the Internet, we can see that at least one made it out alive — and has now been converted by Reddit user 92JMFL into possibly the world’s sweetest Mac display.
Check out more photos below.
Apple is leading the charge in environmental responsibility, and it’s only just getting started.
That’s the message from the company’s 2015 progress report, which details all the ways Apple is striving “to leave the world better than we found it.”
ROSEVILLE, California – This is where your electronics go to die.
In a nondescript, 200,000-square-foot warehouse 20 miles northeast of Sacramento, box after box of discarded electronics and parts sit at Sims Recycling Solutions, awaiting their date with the “mega-shredder” at the end of the line. That’s where four rows of 22 hardened-steel blades will rip and grind the metal housings and circuit boards into tiny chunks.
“We recycle almost everything,” said Bill Vasquez, Sims’ vice president of U.S. operations, during Cult of Mac’s recent tour of the facility. He said more than 99 percent of the materials that pass through Sims’ doors gets recycled. “Our focus is to divert everything from landfill as much as possible.”
