iPhone 11 Pro Environmental Impact

Purchasing my iPhone was accompanied with trading in my old phone (which was becoming unusable due to neverending battery issues). Apple states that over two thirds of traded in devices end up in the hands of new consumers (presumably after a refurbishment process). The rest are recycled so components and/or materials can be recovered. Recycling is the least preferable of the 3 Rs (In order by footprint reduction: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) due to the energy required to recycle anything. However, Apple claims to use 100% renewable energy to power all of their operations (this is misleading to an extent as I will write about later in this analysis).

Apple touts its progress toward “using clean power sources and driving energy efficiency in [their] operations.” However, at least a third of that 100% is from carbon credit purchases. Passing the buck is not an ideal approach toward “using clean power sources and driving energy efficiency.” So, I consider their 100% claim to be greenwashing. However, my particular iPhone has a lifetime climate change footprint of “only” 96 kg CO2e (Carbon dioxide equivalent. Some gasses have greater impacts on the greenhouse effect than CO2 does.). However, I often use it in place of my PC; it is definitely more of an energy hog than a phone despite my efforts in building it to be as energy efficient as possible. Again, passing the buck is a cop-out but that shift compensates for a portion of that CO2e footprint.

Apple is doing quite a bit to reduce the footprints of the materials that they use in their products. The solder used on the logic board of my phone is 100% recycled tin and over half of the rare earth elements are recycled material rather than virgin material (mining rare earth elements has devastating effects on both the environment and health). The packaging used is made of almost 100% recycled paper. Again, recycling is not great because it uses quite a bit of energy:

“The majority of the energy usage of electronic goods happens during production, and recycling does not recover any of the energy used to make a product or the majority of its raw materials. Furthermore, recycling is not nearly as comprehensive or efficient as the public believes.”

Apple utilizes both good and bad approaches toward product longevity. The bad practices are their efforts to make their products unrepairable by third parties in an effort to compel people to purchase new devices if their existing ones break. A great practice that they have is offering iOS upgrades to all products until at least five years after their release. An Android device typically receives one OS upgrade after the version that it ships with.

In conclusion, do not blindly trust in corporations’ proclamations of “greenness.” Do your own research! Apple certainly bends the truth regarding their environmental impact. Recycling rare earth elements is definitely not as bad as mining them but Apple still depends on virgin material and recycling consumes a great deal of energy. Fortunately, technologies are emerging that will greatly reduce the environmental impact of mining rare earth elements. Until they emerge, using any quantity of newly mined rare earth elements seems very wrong. Please consider purchasing a preowned phone rather than a new one (I should have done this). You will save some money and greatly reduce your environmental footprint.

References:

Apple (2019). Environment. Retrieved June 30, 2020, from https://www.apple.com/environment/

Veksler, D. L. (2017, October 15). Apple Is Not as Green as It Seems. Retrieved June 30, 2020, from https://fee.org/articles/apples-environmental-claims-are-misleading/

The original dispatch can be found here: