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Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

thepodswap.com

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Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#71

Post by mschuster91 »

qeternity wrote: post #23
ashayh wrote: post #8

Why do we need a separate business for this? Apple should be made to pay for it. If anyone finds an Airpod on the street or in trash/landfills, they should be able to take it to the nearest Apple store or mail it and get 20-40$ back for it. This should be the law for _all_ and any products, not just electronics. Large corporations have cleverly shifted the responsibility of recycling on the consumer, while they get t…

You can’t just claim that they’ve shifted responsibility without arguing your point. It’s clear you have an axe to grind, but at the same time, where do we draw the line of individual responsibility? It’s not like we haven’t known for decades we were killing the planet…and yet here we all are. Why does the average Joe get off the hook here?

> You can’t just claim that they’ve shifted responsibility without arguing your point.

The point itself is enough. Bottle and car battery deposit schemes show that the system works to significantly reduce littering. Most people take them to the recycling on their own and those who can't be bothered always get picked up by people.

A 10-20€ deposit on phones, a 5€ deposit on small scale stuff like chargers and earphones and a 1€ deposit on batteries would definitely get electronics stuff back into circulation.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#72

Post by bluescrn »

crazygringo wrote: post #57
bruceb wrote: post #3

I am pro refurbishing/reusing and having less waste but its hard to care about tiny airpods being tossed. Maybe they test the message and it resonated better than "Airpods should last longer than your last relationship" or "1 trick that Apple hates" etc.

Seriously, I never understand the "environmental waste" argument as applied to AirPods . The pair of buds weighs a third of a single disposable AA battery. There's less plastic than in an average Chinese takeout container. If you want to complain that they're expensive to replace then go ahead. But as soon as anyone brings up the environment , give me a break. We're not talking about a 65" television that weight 55 p…

It just feels like a disposable $159 product is vastly more wasteful than a disposable <$1 AA battery

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#73

Post by alisonkisk »

an_opabinia wrote: post #67
samatman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misread me, my case was joy * time / embodied energy. How else should we justify the use of energy except through such means? Subjectively I mean, I wouldn't suggest actually quantifying it. I don't burn energy in the winter because I like to spend money, I do it because there's an interior temperature below which I'm miserable. Once I've achieved that homeostasis, the only think left to me is to do it with as li…

I own AirPods, I like them, but it sucks that they die when their battery dies, and they have to be thrown away for pretty much no good reason - just because that's how Apple designed it, and it could have many design priorities, and one of those priorities is to not throw nice shit away after two years. In the spirit of advancing curiosity, it was interesting to just see, is it possible to reduce environmentalism to…

The point is that the environmental focus on airpods is irrational. look at everything in your trash can this week.

If you are upset that they are too expensive, don't buy them. The price isn't going to waste; it has an enormous profit margin over the BoM. (a lot, perhaps most, of the true cost is fixed overhead, so buying more airpods makes them more efficient!)

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#74

Post by megous »

alisonkisk wrote: post #69
Etheryte wrote: post #2

As someone who gets a ridiculous amount of use out of their pods, I really hope this business pans out. I think the product is great, but batteries are consumable products. In fact, I would hope that one day it would be mandatory to offer battery replacements for all products you sell. (Do correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Apple currently does this for pods?)

Look at an airpod. Why should the battery be consumable but not the airpod? They have about the same amount of electronics. The average airpod user throws out more than an airpod's worth of plastic per day . I get junk mail with electronic trash that is bigger than an airpod. Airpods are used with iPhones that have 20x the amount of electronics, so should last 20x as long. People's real concern is the price which is…

Maybe that calc changes when you look at environmental effects of having to keep manufacturing new chips.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#75

Post by alisonkisk »

slg wrote: post #22
samatman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the Discourse in action. For whatever reason, AirPods, of all things, have become a go-to example of environmental waste and throwaway culture. It's bizarre to me. I'm fairly confident that for minutes of pleasure / embodied energy, AirPods score higher than almost anything else I own, certainly among things with a battery and chip. They also last multiples of the time I would get out of wired earphones, wh…

You can't just blame this on "the Discourse" or Apple haters. I have owned countless devices with batteries over my life. None has made me as acutely aware of its battery degrading as Airpods. Eventually I couldn't even make it through a full workout or work call on a single charge. They basically became worthless through nothing but normal usage. There was no visible physical damage. I treated them exactly how I was…

The same degradation happens to my clothing, food, and wired headphones.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#76

Post by JoBrad »

crazygringo wrote: post #57
bruceb wrote: post #3

I am pro refurbishing/reusing and having less waste but its hard to care about tiny airpods being tossed. Maybe they test the message and it resonated better than "Airpods should last longer than your last relationship" or "1 trick that Apple hates" etc.

Seriously, I never understand the "environmental waste" argument as applied to AirPods . The pair of buds weighs a third of a single disposable AA battery. There's less plastic than in an average Chinese takeout container. If you want to complain that they're expensive to replace then go ahead. But as soon as anyone brings up the environment , give me a break. We're not talking about a 65" television that weight 55 p…

I think the problem is volume > individual cost. Apple sold 60 million AirPods in 2019[1]. That number has surely gone up in 2020 and may even be larger in 2021.

1 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sold-nearly-60-million...

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#77

Post by alisonkisk »

internet2000 wrote: post #53
lights0123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they actually open them up and swap the battery and resell, i.e. refurbishing. Apple just throws them away.

Are we sure Apple just throws them away?

Apple would be crazy to do anything else; new airpods are cheap to make and more reliable.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#78

Post by Others »

bluescrn wrote: post #72
crazygringo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I never understand the "environmental waste" argument as applied to AirPods . The pair of buds weighs a third of a single disposable AA battery. There's less plastic than in an average Chinese takeout container. If you want to complain that they're expensive to replace then go ahead. But as soon as anyone brings up the environment , give me a break. We're not talking about a 65" television that weight 55 p…

It just feels like a disposable $159 product is vastly more wasteful than a disposable <$1 AA battery

1. The parent comment is referring to waste in the environmental sense. Nature does not care how expensive the trash was--just the volume/composition 2. It's a big stretch to call AirPods "disposable" I (and many others) keep them for years. In the long run everything is rubbish; an expensive electronic device that lasts for years and years is not "disposable"

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#79

Post by petespeed »

beckman466 wrote: post #47
throwaway81523 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their FAQ is pretty clear that they actually replace the batteries somehow. I'm glad someone figured out how to do that, but I agree with you that the airpod batteries (like the batteries in everything else) should have been replaceable in the first place.

> I agree with you that the airpod batteries (like the batteries in everything else) should have been replaceable in the first place. 100% agree, you can't unsee things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mleQVO1Vd1I

Some thoughts:

1. Every new product designed should have a cost associated to it for proper disposal. Thus total cost of ownership is a "green cost" which is not just acquisition but also proper disposal.

2. Another option is to put burden of mandatory proper recycling back on the original manufacturer of the product using the same supply-chain that is used for sales. Thus consumers should be able to drop electronics at retail store -> supplier -> manufacturer, eventually leading to proper disposal.

3. Incentives from government and/or from culture for manufacturers whose products support R2R (Right to Repair). Thus encouraging reuse and refurb market.

4. Certify for and incentivize towards extending Total life of equipment. e.g. low-durability electronics carry a low-durability tax.

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