If Apple REALLY wants to be carbon neutral and be an environmental leader, it would design Macs like they once did: with replaceable storage, memory and battery. An awful lot of Macs get tossed and do NOT wind up in proper recycling once they become unusable in those regards. But of course, not enabling replacement/upgrades of those components increases sales of Apple 's computers.
Personally (and I'm not suggesting that what I do would apply to the masses because I don't have the data), I would actually update more often if Apple supported this because I would know that the person I pass my current Mac on to would have a viable machine by investing a bit in the upgrades.
Maybe, but that's probably your gut feel rather than based on evidence. I'd love to see a study that evaluates whether replacing components on older and less energy efficient Macs has a lower environmental impact than purchasing newer more energy efficient Macs. I don't know the answer, but it would be an interesting study to see the total cradle-to-grave "carbon cost" and environmental impact of something like a MacBook Pro. Like many things in life, there are things that we do to make ourselves feel better but we seldom take the time to truly understand the system level realities of our actions, even when we feel we're doing the right thing. I'd be willing to bet that we apply a lot more big data analytics to understanding consumer purchasing behaviors than we do to understanding the total environmental impacts of force fed consumerism.
A very small fraction of people keep their digital devices for long time, and by long time, I mean 7, 8, 10 years. The vast majority will either store in somewhere after that, give it to someone else, or dump it. For Apple's stated goal of closed loop manufacturing, they really should offer more money, mail-in boxes, or places to hand over the old machines.
Modularity is a device feature that a certain niche loves, but I don't think it does anything for reducing our CO2 and or waste footprints. Apple has to make recycling an everyday normal thing. So increased trade-in values, increasing money for return of products, and cheap ways to disassemble and recycling. The recycling process has to be cheaper than mining to really make it work. It's going to be slow going for awhile.
If Apple REALLY wants to be carbon neutral and be an environmental leader, it would design Macs like they once did: with replaceable storage, memory and battery. An awful lot of Macs get tossed and do NOT wind up in proper recycling once they become unusable in those regards. But of course, not enabling replacement/upgrades of those components increases sales of Apple 's computers.
Personally (and I'm not suggesting that what I do would apply to the masses because I don't have the data), I would actually update more often if Apple supported this because I would know that the person I pass my current Mac on to would have a viable machine by investing a bit in the upgrades.
Maybe, but that's probably your gut feel rather than based on evidence. I'd love to see a study that evaluates whether replacing components on older and less energy efficient Macs has a lower environmental impact than purchasing newer more energy efficient Macs. I don't know the answer, but it would be an interesting study to see the total cradle-to-grave "carbon cost" and environmental impact of something like a MacBook Pro. Like many things in life, there are things that we do to make ourselves feel better but we seldom take the time to truly understand the system level realities of our actions, even when we feel we're doing the right thing. I'd be willing to bet that we apply a lot more big data analytics to understanding consumer purchasing behaviors than we do to understanding the total environmental impacts of force fed consumerism.
A very small fraction of people keep their digital devices for long time, and by long time, I mean 7, 8, 10 years. The vast majority will either store in somewhere after that, give it to someone else, or dump it. For Apple's stated goal of closed loop manufacturing, they really should offer more money, mail-in boxes, or places to hand over the old machines.
Modularity is a device feature that a certain niche loves, but I don't think it does anything for reducing our CO2 and or waste footprints. Apple has to make recycling an everyday normal thing. So increased trade-in values, increasing money for return of products, and cheap ways to disassemble and recycling. The recycling process has to be cheaper than mining to really make it work. It's going to be slow going for awhile.
The trade-in program isn't Apple, it's a 3rd party provider and they just partner with them to facilitate the collection of the item and apply the credit to new purchases. So, I don't think they have any influence on the value. I'm not even sure they handle their e-waste collection program either, maybe for certain devices they've got their robots disassembling, but I would bet those bins just get handed off to whoever collects e-waste in each area.
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Modularity is a device feature that a certain niche loves, but I don't think it does anything for reducing our CO2 and or waste footprints. Apple has to make recycling an everyday normal thing. So increased trade-in values, increasing money for return of products, and cheap ways to disassemble and recycling. The recycling process has to be cheaper than mining to really make it work. It's going to be slow going for awhile.