Apple's recycling reality

Hey y’all. What can a heist of nearly 100,000 iPhones teach us about Apple’s recycling program? But first...Three things you need to know to [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [by Austin Carr]( Hey y’all. What can a heist of nearly 100,000 iPhones teach us about Apple’s recycling program? But first... Three things you need to know today: • Salesforce cools on [takeover talks with Informatica]( • TikTok’s [moment of US reckoning nears]( • Gina Raimondo [doesn’t think highly of Huawei’s chip]( Room for improvement Just in time for today’s Earth Day, Apple Inc. has released its [annual environmental report](. As usual, it paints a glossy portrait of Apple’s progress toward carbon neutrality. I discovered a less flattering picture of Apple’s environmental record in a lawsuit the tech giant filed against a recycling partner several years ago. In 2020, the Cupertino company [sued electronics-waste processor GEEP Canada Inc.]( for a scheme allegedly involving workers reselling at least 99,975 iPhones and other Apple gadgets instead of recycling them. GEEP, while acknowledging Apple goods were misappropriated, blamed the alleged plot on several “rogue employees.” The theft, which is documented in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, raised an important question: If these devices were in good enough shape to be reused, then why did Apple want GEEP to scrap them? Contracts that require e-waste vendors to recycle electronics regardless of their condition are a dirty secret of the industry. In many cases, these products—ones that are usually returned or traded in for upgraded models—could be refurbished, but manufacturers and retailers often mandate that they be shredded to salvage their precious metals, a far less eco-friendly approach than extending the life of the whole device. There are a bunch of reasons why companies opt for [this kind of destruction](, but a common justification is commercial: The more saturated markets become with cheaper used gadgets, the more they risk interfering with all-important sales of expensive new products. During my reporting on the ongoing Apple-GEEP lawsuit, former employees of both companies and e-waste executives suggested Apple could be much more open about these so-called must-shred agreements. Kyle Wiens, [a right-to-repair advocate]( who runs the refurbishing business iFixit, told me he wishes such contracts would be banned altogether. Even if the old iPhone you exchanged at an Apple store for the latest version isn’t fixable, there are components inside that repair specialists would love to purchase for their supplies, Wiens said. Apple noted in its new environmental report that it has continued expanding the number of parts it recovers for use in repaired devices. An Apple spokesperson also told me the company creates long-lasting products that often serve multiple owners. “Apple’s industry-leading recycling program offers customers easy ways to bring their devices back to be analyzed for refurbishment and reuse,” the spokesperson said. “When a device finally reaches the end of its life, we’re pioneering innovative new ways to recover the valuable materials inside.” If forced-destruction practices are here to stay, at least one positive step would be if Apple embraced more transparency about how some of its recycling partners scrap its devices. For years, Apple has publicly showcased its slick and novel recycling robots, including “[Daisy](,” a machine that can now automate the disassembly of 29 iPhone models. But e-waste insiders say a lot of aged Apple devices undergo traditional recycling methods—that is, some rough manual dismantling by hand before they’re tossed into big industrial shredders that crunch the products up into tiny shards. Yes, it’s an unpretty and messy process—especially at GEEP, where workers wore orange coveralls and respirators to protect against debris—but it would give consumers a clearer sense of what can happen to their old iPads and Watches. During my research, I kept hearing that Apple has historically been too precious about what products it’s willing to refurbish, out of concern for its brand reputation. On the one hand, this makes sense: If Apple resells a used iPhone that is beneath its quality standards and it performs poorly, that could harm the consumer’s view of the entire product ecosystem. On the other hand, there’s a growing market of secondary retailers and repair businesses that offer used devices that may not quite live up to Apple’s “certified refurbished” criteria, and that’s OK. Customers know the difference, just as they would have different expectations for buying a “certified pre-owned” vehicle direct from an official brand dealer versus a cheaper version of that same car from a used lot. If Apple were open to redirecting some recycler-bound devices to third-party resellers, it could potentially save lots of used products not pristine enough for its in-house repair program. At a minimum, that approach would save many gadgets from the shredder—or from being stolen from a recycling warehouse.—[Austin Carr](mailto:acarr54@bloomberg.net) The big story Big Tech earnings arrive this week, right in time for investors looking for an artificial intelligence-powered rebound in the slumping S&P 500 Index, which just suffered through its worst week in over a year. [Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Tesla are all set to report.]( One to watch Candle Media co-CEO Kevin Mayer, also the former CEO of TikTok and former chairman of Disney, joins Ed Ludlow to discuss TikTok's troubles and Disney's leadership, as well as when we can expect a Cocomelon movie to come out. Get fully charged OpenAI says Elon Musk’s “revisionist history” is an effort to boost [his competing AI company.]( Musk is postponing his India trip to later in the year, citing [Tesla obligations.]( Tesla is slashing prices across its model range and markets, with the weekend seeing a series of [cuts in Europe, China and the US.]( What is the Bitcoin “halving” that just happened? 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