Recently, my current iPhone 6 was glitching a lot, so I took it to the Apple Store. Since I have warranty on my phone, I was able to get a brand new iPhone 6, no questions asked. As the man handed me my new phone and I gave him my old one I asked, "Just out of curiosity, what do you guys do with the old phone?". The man looked a little bewildered by my question but then continued to say, "We ship it to our warehouse, they have machines separate it, and then it's dumped in a landfill." The mans response was shocking to me to say the least. I was expecting something like "We reuse the parts" or "We give it to schools who could use it." But instead, Apple dumps the old phones into a land fill. This is also known as e-waste, or electronic waste. Since electronics are non-biodegradable, they stay in the landfills for forever. Since technology has been around for a short amount of time, we still have not experienced the major consequences of dumping electronic waste onto the planet. If people new that every time they 'get rid' of their phone is was harming the environment, wou ld they refrain from buying a new iPhone every year? Source: http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Electronics/WhatisEwaste/

Claire, I am also astonished. I have looked at their website and they claim that anybody can recycle apple products at their stores. It is troubling that Apple would not follow through with this, especially with statements about protecting the environment. I was curious to know more, and I found an outline of their energy saving and carbon reducing figures: http://images.apple.com/environment/pdf … t_2016.pdf
On page 16-17 they outline the amount of products they reuse and recycle, and they have kept almost 600 million tons of e-waste out of landfills and divert 70% of their waste for reuse. But the store clerk's response makes me doubt their claims. If they really do so much to protect the environment, why did that person from their company say they do something different? Do these inconsistencies happen at any other companies?
Sources:
http://www.apple.com/recycling/
http://www.apple.com/environment/

Wow you bring up a really interesting point! E-waste is something I rarely think of, but now it will certainly make me think the next time I need an upgrade for one of my electronics. I actually still have all of my old phones (minus the one I lost) and I keep them stored in a box. I realize now that I really didn't need all the upgrades I got, and often only upgraded because I wanted to coolest and newest one out there. The craziest part is I know a lot of people that get the new phone EVERY time a new one comes out. It makes me wonder how much more e-waste is created every time a new phone comes out. Considering many phones are tossed out simply because they are "too old" is sad when so many are still in usable condition. It makes me wonder how much waste we could conserve if people only got phones when they really needed them, and if the old ones were recycled as much as possible. This also makes me think about the e-waste bins at my school that allows anyone to bring their old electronics, light bulbs, and batteries to be recycled properly. I have personally never us ed them before even though I probably should utilize them. This also makes me wonder how much e-waste could be dealt with properly if people actually put them in e-waste recycling bins?