2024-04-19 15:56:14
Fri, 5:56 p.m. Hardware: iPhone Since 2014, Apple has been cooperating with the recycling provider Geep Canada, which specializes in electronics. This accepts iPhones returned by customers, dismantles them into their individual parts so that raw materials can then be fed back into the production process. Behind the scenes, however, Geep Canada employees operated another business model, as the company picked up a significant portion of the deliveries. Many of those iPhones and iPads did not end up on the disassembly lines – but actually on the street. There was brisk resale, according to court documents, at least one in five devices.
Almost 20 percent resold instead of dismantled
According to Apple, they were able to prove that at least 18 percent of the serial numbers are still in use with active devices. According to Apple, the actual number of devices put into circulation is significantly higher – iPhones and iPads without LTE do not even appear in the statistics mentioned. Initially, the company acted as expected and filed a lawsuit against the provider. Cupertino is demanding compensation of $23 million as well as all sales resulting from the illegal trade.
Apple wants to keep the topic out of the headlines
Afterwards, things became noticeably quiet about the lawsuit that was initiated in 2020. As Bloomberg explains in a detailed article, the proceedings against both Geep and the employees involved will soon be dropped. Apple had another problem that they wanted to keep out of the headlines. If there were still so many devices to be resold, 100,000 units of fully functional hardware should have been destroyed. But that doesn’t fit at all with the company’s self-portrayal that “reuse is an important aspect of resource-saving use.”
A moral contradiction that is difficult to resolve
According to Bloombeg, this obvious contradiction between the alleged commitment to the used market and then the mass destruction of functioning devices was very difficult to resolve. Although they were clearly illegal and Apple would certainly have prevailed in court, the process was still potentially harmful to public perception. So that’s how it came about that we stopped pursuing the matter and let it fall asleep in silence.
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