Once iPhones go to Turkey, they're not coming back to Cupertino. There is no consistency across the entire return stream." Because every component in every model is different. "To have a robot that can predict what model, and what components are going to be in that model, and harvest all those components in a predictable way-there is a lot of work that has to be done before that can happen. "The electronics return stream is variable," Watson says. The products are too widely dispersed, the waste stream too mixed up. But that isn't a scalable solution, says recycling industry expert Mike Watson. Meyers did tell me that Apple is working on plans to roll out a Liam for other devices, too. iPhones, MacBooks, iPods, iPads, iMacs, and Apple TVs. There are more than one billion Apple devices in use right now. There are plans to install another machine in Europe. Valerie Volcovici of Reuters did the math: Even working at the rate of one iPhone every 11 seconds "Liam likely can handle no more than a few million phones per year, a small fraction of the more than 231 million phones Apple sold in 2015," she wrote. Right now, though, there's just one Liam. "Manufacturers in most states are paying for a non-specific set of pounds that can be any brand or any device type that is covered," says Jason Linnell, Executive Director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling. Apple hasn't disclosed the ratio of its own products that its contracted recyclers collect, but it is probably similar. For example, Apple products made up less than 2 percent, by weight, of e-waste collected by the state of Washington in 2014. Based on that number, Apple agrees to pay recyclers to collect a certain poundage of end-of-life electronics-whatever those electronics happen to be. As part of these Extended Producer Responsibility edicts, manufacturers must report how much product they sell in those states. About half of US states have e-waste laws requiring manufacturers to contribute to local recycling efforts. Liam is not the recycling revolution that Apple wants it to be, and it won't solve most of the real problems that recyclers face any time soon.īut that's a little misleading-it's not just Apple products being collected, and Apple's not doing it voluntarily.
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