Tag: electronics waste

Here’s why Apple’s charger switch is such a big deal | CNN Business

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Apple retired its Lightning charger on Tuesday exactly 11 years to the day it was first announced.

The effort marks a milestone moment for the company by finally adopting USB-C, a universal charging system. That’s noteworthy not only because Apple has been resistant to do so for years but because it’s about to make charging that much easier for its customers.

But, as with most things, there’s a catch: The switch to a universal standard means Apple is giving up control of its wired charging ecosystem, and identifying good chargers from bad ones won’t be obvious to many consumers.

At its iPhone 15 event, the company announced all of its next-generation smartphones will launch with USB-C charging, and so will the latest iteration of its AirPods Pro. Although Apple has previously switched its iPads and MacBooks to USB-C charging, it has been resistant to making the change on the iPhone until now.

The switch would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

Now Apple customers can use the same USB-C chargers to power their iPhones, iPads and Mac computers — no more scrambling to find the right charger for each device. Charging can also occur between devices, such as connecting a low-battery iPhone to a fully-charged iPad, or similarly between different brands.

“This is arguably the biggest disruption to iPhone design for several years, but in reality, it is hardly a dramatic move,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight.

Last year, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, noted the value and ubiquity of the Lightning charger, which is designed for faster device charging, but noted “obviously we will have to comply” with the EU mandate.

“We have no choice, like we do around the world, to comply with local laws, but we think the approach would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government [have] that perspective,” Joswiak said at the time.

The EU’s decision is part of a greater effort to tackle e-waste overall, but could it generate more in the short term as people phase out their Lightning cables. Although Apple has voiced environmental concerns over what happens to old Lightning chargers, it has financial reasons for pushing back on the change, too.

Apple introduced the Lightning charger alongside the iPhone 5 in 2012, replacing its existing 30-pin dock connector with one that enabled faster charging and had a reversible design. It also ignited a related accessories business, requiring users to buy a $30 Lightning adapter to connect the device to older docks, alarm clocks and speaker systems.

“For Apple, it was all about being in control of its own ecosystem,” said David McQueen, a director at ABI Research. “Apple makes good money from selling Lightning cables and its many related accessories.”

It also takes a financial cut from the third-party accessories and cables that go through its Made For iPhone program. “Moving to USB Type C would take away this level of control as USB-C is a much more open ecosystem,” McQueen said.

Apple is now selling a new $29 USB-C to Lightning adapter to allow people to connect their existing Lightning accessories to a USB-C-enabled iPhone or iPad to charge or share data. Similarly, Apple introduced a $29 dongle back in 2012 to connect the iPhone 5 – the first phone with its Lightning charger – to old docks, alarm clock radios and speaker systems.

The move to USB-C won’t likely be an incentive for people to upgrade, but it could sway some consumers who have been resistant to the iPhone over its charging limitations, according to Thomas Husson, a vice president at Forrester Research.

Considering many mobile devices already use USB-C, including Apple’s own iPads and MacBooks, access to charging wires shouldn’t be too hard or costly.

But knockoffs abound, and some USB-C chargers are much safer than others. Some may provide too much power, and others not enough. Some can regulate the flow of electricity and data to your phone – and others can’t. Among CNN Underscored’s top recommendations for USB-C chargers are from big brands, including Anker, Belkin, Apple, Amazon and Google.

“Given how widely USB-C has been used in other devices, it’s hard to imagine that customers will be totally caught out by this switch, and in the long term, it’s likely to benefit them, with a universal charging system having some very obvious upsides,” Wood said.

Apple also said a dedicated USB-C controller will allow for transfer speeds of up to 20 times faster than with USB-2 technology for the iPhone 15 Pro.

Retiring the Lightning cable could even generate, in the short term, a surge of e-waste as iPhone users toss their useless Lightning cables in a drawer. But Apple told CNN it has an existing “robust” recycling program where you can bring in used chargers and cables. It’s also possible to look for a local e-waste recycling center or Best Buy store for environmentally friendly options.

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August 2, 2023
Apple just killed the iPhone Lightning connector. What to do with your old chargers | CNN Business

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Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free, here.

New York
CNN
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At long last, Apple is killing its proprietary Lightning port in the iPhone 15 and embracing a charging cable that’s compatible with non-Apple products. That’s one less extra cord cluttering your nightstand. One less thing to forget when packing for a weekend getaway.

But the move, hastened by a European regulatory mandate passed last year, is a largely symbolic measure that comes years after most other gadgets switched to USB-C. And it won’t do much to shrink the mountains of e-waste piling up around the globe.

“I would classify the EU law and Apple as an evolution, not a revolution,” says Marian Chertow, a professor of industrial environmental management at the Yale School of the Environment.

When the European Commission passed the directive last year, it cited two motivations: First, everyone agrees that it’s super annoying to have so many cables lying around. Second, having a common charger across devices — whether they’re made by Apple or Samsung or Garmin or whoever — would “significantly reduce electronic waste.”

Apple initially pushed back, of course, partly because selling extra Lightning cables made it lots of money. But it also said the waste argument was misguided, and that the promise of wireless charging would make the cable issue moot. (Still, the company ultimately said it would comply with the common cable rules.)

Retiring the Lightning cable could even generate, in the short term, a surge of e-waste as iPhone users toss their useless Lightning cables in a drawer. (Which, to be clear, isn’t recommended. Apple says it has a “robust” recycling program where you can bring in used chargers and cables. You can also look for a local e-waste recycling center or Best Buy store for environmentally friendly options.)

Big-picture, though, the impact on the mountains of global e-waste will likely be minimal.

There are about 66 million tons of electronic waste generated each year, says Ruediger Kuehr, head of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in Bonn, Germany. Charging cables, he said account for “a few hundred thousand tons.”

“When we look to the pure numbers, it’s close to nothing,” Kuehr said. “But we nevertheless think it’s a very important step in order to make people … aware of the issue we are facing.”

E-waste is a growing problem that has yet to enter the mainstream consciousness. Most of it ends up where it shouldn’t — in our closets and junk drawers — which means more materials such as copper, gold and platinum have to be mined to produce new products.

“You can make money out of it, but you have to really do a lot of steps,” Kuehr says. “This is not understandable for the consumer in comparison to all the other waste streams.”

Nearly 80% of all e-waste generated around the globe is not properly treated, he said.

Whether the EU rule actually reduces waste is beside the point if it can push Apple and other manufacturers to help close the loop by making it easier to refurbish and recycle old products.

And to Apple’s credit, the company has been “a leader in scraping off rare earth metals from its reuse pile to recover these expensive materials,” Chertow says, noting that last year Apple said it was reusing more than two-thirds of the aluminum it needed. “These days, waste experts find that “reuse” is most often a better path than recycling as more can be recovered.”

—CNN’s Samantha Murphy Kelly contributed to this article.

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August 2, 2023
What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste | CNN Business

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CNN Business
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In the past two months, Apple, Google and Samsung have all unveiled their newest smartphones and other devices with the goal of getting consumers to upgrade ahead of the holidays. But in the process, these and other companies may also be adding to a growing problem: electronic waste.

The limited lifespan of many tech gadgets combined with few options to fix older devices, have caused the issue of e-waste to surge over the years. United Nation’s data indicates the world generated a staggering 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste in 2019, and only 17.4% of that was recycled.

Friday marks International E-Waste Day, an annual opportunity to reflect on the impacts of electronic waste and do more to repair or recycle them. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEE) Forum, a Brussels-based nonprofit that has spearheaded the occasion since 2018, said the focus this year is on taking action with the small bits of e-waste many people may unintentionally hoard, including your old cell phone, headphones, remote controls and computer mouse.

“People tend not to realize that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes,” Pascal Leroy, director general of the WEEE Forum, said in a statement.

The issue of e-waste is about much more than just cleaning out space in your junk drawers.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says large swaths of e-waste are shipped to developing countries that lack the capacity to reject these imports or infrastructure to safely recycle them. The World Health Organization also warned that children, with their smaller hands, are often used to process mountains of e-waste in developing nations in search of valuable elements such as copper, silver, palladium and more. The WHO said more than 18 million children are exposed to a range of negative health impacts as they engage in this informal e-waste processing industry.

Here are a few steps you can take with the phones, laptops and chargers you have stashed at home to alleviate the e-waste burden.

If you live in an area that offers e-waste disposal services (either via specific pickup dates or at a drop-off location), experts say that’s among the easiest and most intuitive ways to clear out old gadgets.

Various coalitions have emerged in recent years to give consumers the option to responsibly dispose of devices. The e-Stewards group and Sustainable Electronics Recycling International each offer online tools to find recycling centers that they have certified.

The collective impact of recycling e-waste can be staggering. For every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, the EPA says 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.

But not all municipalities in the US offer infrastructure for e-waste recycling.

If you can’t find a recycling center nearby, a growing list of major retailers — including Staples and Best Buy — also have programs that let customers bring in e-waste for recycling. And many producers, including Apple

(AAPL), have programs that offer credits or free recycling in exchange for trading-in used gadgets. Google

(GOOG), for example, offers an option to request a free shipping label to mail in some used gadgets and electronics for recycling.

Environmental advocates say the most important step to tackling the mounting e-waste problem is simply to try and use your electronics for as long as possible. In some ways, that’s getting easier than ever.

While tech manufacturers have come under fire for tactics aimed at making you upgrade, policymakers have recently enacted changes to push companies to make it easier for customers to repair consumer electronics and support the rise of the Right-to-Repair movement.

Earlier this year, Apple and Samsung launched their self-service repair stores, offering parts for users seeking do-it-yourself fixes for their smartphones. Google similarly announced it would offer genuine Pixel parts for DIY-ers at an online store this year.

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October 14, 2022