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Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

money.cnn.com

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Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#11

Post by hudibras »

chrisseaton wrote: post #4
Pada wrote: post #2

Or 1000 kilograms for the rest of the world.

Or simply, one tonne. In fact I'd guess that the engineers, thinking in SI units, told the PR people that 'we recovered a tonne', rounding to that figure for them because it sounds neat. Then the PR people converted to pounds for older readers, which comes out as the very precise sounding 2,204. So the figure is probably rounded but then presented as being much more precise than it is.

But since this gold, did they actually measure the weight in international troy ounces, then convert (correctly or otherwise) to avoirdupois pounds, then maybe another incorrect or correct conversion to kilograms and metric tonnes?

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#12

Post by basicplus2 »

taspeotis wrote: post #6
revelation wrote: post #5

Step 1: design iPhones to be not repairable. Step 2: determine it costs too much to repair "broken" iPhones (see step 1). Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. What an enormous win for the environment and recycling! There are plenty of companies that will already do step 3, but pretty much nobody other than Apple has the opportunity to do something about the vastly more important step 2.

> Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. It seems they have a deft touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc

yeah right... a snazzy looking robot my arse.. more like children in China and India sitting in squaller pulling them apart by hand, burning the plastic by hand and sniffing it to determine the plastic type..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_recycling

"Because the U.S has not ratified the Basel Convention or its Ban Amendment, and has no domestic laws forbidding the export of toxic waste, the Basel Action Network estimates that about 80% of the electronic waste directed to recycling in the U.S. does not get recycled there at all, but is put on container ships and sent to countries such as China.[6][7][8][9] Guiyu in the Shantou region of China, and Delhi and Bangalore in India, have electronic waste processing areas.[6][10][11]"

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/30/world/asia/china-electroni...

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#14

Post by revelation »

taspeotis wrote: post #6
revelation wrote: post #5

Step 1: design iPhones to be not repairable. Step 2: determine it costs too much to repair "broken" iPhones (see step 1). Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. What an enormous win for the environment and recycling! There are plenty of companies that will already do step 3, but pretty much nobody other than Apple has the opportunity to do something about the vastly more important step 2.

> Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. It seems they have a deft touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc

So they separate out perfectly fine, working components.. and then burn them down?

I'm pretty confident that recovering gold economically involves smelting and other rather destructive processes.

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#15

Post by ericabiz »

revelation wrote: post #5

Step 1: design iPhones to be not repairable. Step 2: determine it costs too much to repair "broken" iPhones (see step 1). Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. What an enormous win for the environment and recycling! There are plenty of companies that will already do step 3, but pretty much nobody other than Apple has the opportunity to do something about the vastly more important step 2.

iPhones are VERY repairable. Source: I run a repair shop and iPhones are most of our business.

You want to talk about phones that are not repairable? Let's talk about ANY HTC phone. They're total crap to repair.

The worst, though, are the cheap MetroPCS and Cricket Android phones--the ones you've probably never heard of but that we get calls about every day, like HTC Desires, Samsung Galaxy Core Primes, and a whole line of tiny LG phones with odd model numbers. THOSE phones are completely unrepairable--not because we can't get the parts, but because the repair, which runs $80 or so to fix a broken screen, is almost twice what it costs to just buy a new phone.

These phones are unabashedly sold to poor and even to homeless people, who then get the choice of desperately trying to continue using them when they inevitably break, or ponying up another $50 to buy a new one. It's a way, way worse model than iPhones, and one the HN community probably isn't familiar with (I didn't know anything about this until I started running a repair store.) It's a pretty disgusting market.

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#17

Post by Symbiote »

chrisseaton wrote: post #4
Pada wrote: post #2

Or 1000 kilograms for the rest of the world.

Or simply, one tonne. In fact I'd guess that the engineers, thinking in SI units, told the PR people that 'we recovered a tonne', rounding to that figure for them because it sounds neat. Then the PR people converted to pounds for older readers, which comes out as the very precise sounding 2,204. So the figure is probably rounded but then presented as being much more precise than it is.

They probably picked the wrong archaic unit. Shouldn't it be measured in troy pounds?

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#18

Post by azazqadir »

Fundlab wrote: post #8

What parts of Apple's devices contain gold?

Gold, silver or copper are used in electronic devices as a conductor. Your device should have one as well, whether in gold or silver, depends on the makers. But the quantity of the metal used might not be as much as you are thinking.

Re: Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year

#20

Post by e12e »

basicplus2 wrote: post #12
taspeotis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Step 3: Burn the whole lot down for precious metals. It seems they have a deft touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc

yeah right... a snazzy looking robot my arse.. more like children in China and India sitting in squaller pulling them apart by hand, burning the plastic by hand and sniffing it to determine the plastic type.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_recycling "Because the U.S has not ratified the Basel Convention or its Ban Amendment, and has no domestic laws forbidding the export of toxic waste, the Basel Action…

Speaking of old articles, I came across this on iPhone (and other electronic) recycling from 2012:

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-environmental-pitfalls-at-the-e...

Would be interesting to see a real follow-up, rather than just some PR-numbers from Apple.

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