Apple's new 'zero waste' ad is complete garbage

The iPhone is hard to recycle, difficult to repair, and rendered needlessly obsolete by software updates — but Apple wants us to believe it's "zero waste."

A new ad published to YouTube earlier this week implores customers to switch to an iPhone on the basis of Apple's supposed environmental bonafides. "iPhone is assembled in facilities that send Zero Waste to landfills," the copy under the ad reads. "Life’s easier when you switch to iPhone. Switch today."

Frankly, this is nuts.

If "zero waste" is true about the iPhone's assembly, it certainly isn't about everything that happens after. In fact, it's easy for old iPhones to become waste themselves, because Apple makes it difficult to repair or recover the valuable components that make them work. Critical materials like cobalt, recently in headlines following a report that Apple will attempt to buy it directly from miners, are in limited supply but very difficult to recover from the gadgets they're used in. There won't always be "new" resources for use in our electronics, which should make companies ensure old devices last as long as possible. Read more...