back to article SAVE THE EARTH... give all your iThings back to us, begs Apple

Apple's flagship products rarely come in colours other than silver, black and white. But for Earth Day, the fruity firm has decided to coat its entire business in a lurid shade of green. Cupertino's latest eco-ruse is a recycling scheme that'll allow fanbois to drop off their old iThings and pick up a gift card if the gear is …

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  1. Only me!
    Trollface

    Or just sell your old iThing on eBay, local paper, notice board, etc, etc.......Who would have ever thought of that?

    You also get to have cash to spend how you want, maybe on that nice Samsung you just spotted.

  2. flearider

    well look at us now ..we only use slave labour camps in china to produce are products ..

    we lie about how much pollution we cause to make our products

    apple ....we know how to bullshit you ..

  3. Alan Denman

    Remember how they were going EPEAT free.......

    until, no doubt, EPEAT worked out the loss of income and capitalised.

    I don't find all that glue they use to keep users and 3rd party repair companies out, making laptops and tablets very disposable green at all.

    Greed is all I see, I ain't green. And we know full well solar power provides income.

    It is financial sense driving them as is this dodgy publicity drive.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Remember how they were going EPEAT free.......

      >I don't find all that glue they use to keep users and 3rd party repair companies out, making laptops and tablets very disposable green at all.

      That would suggest that you might not be a product designer or manufacturing engineer, then.

      There is a difference between making a product easy to repair and making it easy to recycle.

      It's cheaper to dismantle end of life products in a batch process. Glues facilitate this processing, since heating a batch of products in an oven is cheaper that employing someone to unscrew two dozen mechanical fastenings per unit. The trend in legislation is such that it is in the manufacturer's interests to make product end-of-life disposal easier and cheaper.

      True, it is often better to repair than to recycle, but not always... you could hours fault-finding a PCB, but why would you if it only cost $5? In any case, with greater miniaturisation, things are only going to get harder to repair, even with the best will. However, they generally get more reliable, too.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Remember how they were going EPEAT free.......

        But what usually breaks - the PCB or the no-longer-repairable screen?

  4. Mephistro
    Facepalm

    Apple, the Eco Friendly company

    That's why they make all their products in a country with such astringent environmental laws as China.

    ***IRONY OVERDOSE ALERT!!!*** ***CALL THE PARAMEDICS!!!***... [lost carrier]...

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Very environmental

    So a cheaper second-hand iDevice can be refurbished and maybe even sold for full price and the money goes to Apple.

    The last I heard Sony didn't accept iTunes Store gift cards.

  6. Michael Hawkes
    Childcatcher

    Greenwashing

    If they really wanted to make environmentally friendly products, they'd design them to be easily repaired/upgraded so people wouldn't need to buy new ones so often.

    1. Don Jefe

      Re: Greenwashing

      There are a few competing systems out there, none of which are really well done, that focus on scoring companies on their sustainability efforts with weighting for 'green washing'. Not those silly little systems cooked up by HippyWorld, but real analysis systems built by people who understand such things.

      That last bit is crucial because the things that keep getting scuttled are designed for philanthropic organizations to use in determining which NPO's should get money based on the effectiveness of their previous work in sustainability and the partners who pay them big bucks to develop customer friendly 'Green Company' campaigns (give us back the thing and we'll give you $5 campaigns aren't cooked up internally you know.

      Those philanthropic organizations have systems for everything else, even selecting board members and going as deep as any college clubs or fraternal organizations they were part of and where the served in the military (if they did). Part of a dumb club as a kid or sent to fight in a conflict that was fucked? Too bad, no Board job for you. They take it serious is what I'm getting at). But nothing useful for weighting green washing. Know why?

      It's because the people who have accumulated enough wealth to give lots of money away are smart enough to know a battle that can't be won when they see it. The general feeling is that it's better to use the money you're wanting to help people with on doing just that, not throwing it at endless parades of lawyers that have no chance of succeeding. Any success they did have would be no more than 'win washing' where there's no actual winning involved. I would rather buy modern A/V kit for underfunded Southern Appalachian school systems and fund scholarships to top schools for smart poor kids than give another lawyer more money to buy flashy cars that drink gallons of gas while speeding to the sustainability talks you're paying them $800/hr to attend.

      That's really the worst part from my perspective. The companies that play sustainable one day per year send their legal teams to force their clients inclusion into discussions about the sustainability scoring systems and throw up endless legal roadblocks and they fly their legal staff to the scuttle the sustainability meetings in the corporate jets that suck more fuel per hour than most multi-car families purchase in a year. It's just fucking ridiculous.

      I like my iPhone just fine, but the green painted lead bullshit they shovel every year is just stupid. I know it's easy to pick on Apple, but they certainly aren't the only companies that play at this shit. They're not even the worst offenders. They'd be a lot better off spending that money buying off school kids (which is the historic Apple MO) than on garbage like this. If they taped a $100 bill to each of those adverts they'd have customers for all time, just do that and be honest about your intentions.

  7. Truth4u

    "use all our innovation and all of our expertise to make the planet more secure"

    Woah slow down there Buck Rogers, you want to make the planet more secure? Like x-raying my junk when I travel and shit like that? Leave it out.

    Maybe they're going to release a portable perv scanner, but what to call it? I'm speaking to their consultant now and for $50million he can tell me the first letter of the name will be i. I told him I would write a cheque.

  8. M Gale

    Bigass Samsung link URL hidden under easier-to-read text.

    I think this deserves an equally cheeky response from Samsung, perhaps taking the shape of a fake apology?

  9. Jim McDonald
    Childcatcher

    It would be highly amusing if the solar panels featured in the Apple ad were actually manufactured by Samsung!

    Quite possible given they manufacture some of the most efficient (subject to certain types/usage) http://www.samsung.com/us/business/solarmodules/introductiontosamsungsolarenergy.html

  10. Tim Roberts 1

    Aaaaaahhhh

    That warm fuzzy feeling that I'll get if I ever buy an iphone ......Gee, I'm starting to feel all tingly right now, just thinking about how good for the environment my new toy will be.

  11. i like crisps
    FAIL

    IRONIC REALLY...

    ...i mean, with the amount of Bullshit that comes out of that company, they're never going to hit Zero emissions, ever!

  12. heyrick Silver badge

    Can't see this working except for delusional f**kwits

    I mean, really, have you seen the prices older Apple kit fetches on eBay and the like? If you want to be all cuddly-green, then "recycle" it there. Keep to a realistic price (look up others just like yours, see what they're fetching) and it ought to shift. And, hey, guess what. No cool Apple gift cards, just cold hard cash in your bank account.

    1. Don Jefe

      Re: Can't see this working except for delusional f**kwits

      You'd be better off donating the phone to Goodwill and just deducting the donation from your taxes than taking the Apple 'give it back' value. Goodwill is much nicer about it all, they let you determine the value of what you're donating (within reason of course) and print you up a nice receipt or email it to you if you don't want to waste paper...

  13. Chris G

    Good for mushrooms

    Sounds like BS to me.

    "And we eagerly await the day when every product is made without the harmful toxins we have removed from ours."

    So that they can sue them for violating some spurious patent claim and copying? at work?

    I wonder if Green Apple has removed ALL toxins from their products and if they can guarantee that workers involved in the manufacture of Appoo products are never exposed to toxins.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Good for mushrooms

      "I wonder if Green Apple has removed ALL toxins from their products "

      I expect there's still at least one in them: the pixie dust that helps create and sustain the reality distortion field.

      Also: What's the betting (I can't be bothered to check) that the gift cards are only redeemable via iTunes or in an Apple Store, to ensure the money stays with Apple in reality.

  14. Mystic Megabyte
    FAIL

    iPood

    Or you could use an iPood to bury your shiny thing with an acorn and grow an oak tree.

    Oh no! You cannot because a device for burying turds infringed on the all encompassing Apple empire and was banned.

  15. Tromos

    Could have been phrased better

    "we eagerly await the day when every product is made without the harmful toxins we have removed from ours"

    I thought that was already the case. Or are they saying that they are selling on the harmful toxins they remove for other companies to use in manufacturing?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      "without the harmful toxins we have removed from ours"

      And what about the harmful toxins they haven't removed from their products ?

      Or is Apple trying to make me think that there are no harmful toxins of any kind in their products ? Because that would be wrong.

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        Re: "without the harmful toxins we have removed from ours"

        Are there any non-harmful toxins?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's all well and good, but they just outsource half their environmental burden to Foxconn and gloss over the issue of the iPad 3's 2/10 iFixit repairability score.

    1. Snarkster

      I'm sure they'll fix that issue. 2/10 is a little high after all.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think I might just be super-green if I go one step further ...

    ... and rather than return my used iGear maybe I'll just not buy any more iGear. Now that would properly save the planet and in the long run provide a bit of comedy on the heels of comments such as "sell your stock if all you care about is maximizing shareholder value, don't believe in global warming etc. etc.".

    That aside, can any of you fellow geeks recommend a good alternative to MBPs with Retina? I have read about a few but have never seen/tried another hidpi laptop. Any good ones out there?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Solar panels should face south, not east or west as shown in the ad.

    And with solar panels in that photo orientated either due East, or, due West, perhaps the rest of us are grateful other companies know that the optimum orientation (in the northern hemisphere) should be southwards.

    1. M Gale

      Re: Solar panels should face south, not east or west as shown in the ad.

      This of course, assumes the panels are not tracking the sun.

  19. SuperMario

    Well....

    I think a great start would be to use tha same charger as the rest of the mobile industry!!!... ...just saying

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Well....

      Yeah well, the rest of the mobile industry brought it on themselves... Samsung never twice used the same proprietary connector on their pre-microUSB phones, Sony used a variety of different connectors, too. Nokia shipped hones that sported a miniUSB socket, but wouldn't accept a charge from it...

      In fact, it was only iPhone and Nokia users who had a fair chance of being able to borrow a compatible charger in the workplace or at a friend's house.

      Anyway, the rest of the industry is about to change to a different connector again... one that roughly resemble the connector Apple are currently using.

      Just saying.

  20. P. Lee

    Please don't sell them second-hand

    Remember, every time someone doesn't buy a new idevice, a Chinese child labourer goes hungry!

  21. Breen Whitman

    Thank god Apple didn't invent the car as we would all still be driving the model T if it did.

    Samsung takes a noble concept and improves it, adding the equivilant of fuel injection , ABS brakes and air bags.

    The iPhone's leaf spring suspension and single windscreen wiper is all very hip and cool, but you know Lifes about moving forward and innovation.

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