Evergreen Conifer

Life cycle analysis is the tool by which a product’s impact on the environment through its lifetime is evaluated. In the context of recycling, it helps to determine if waste reduction, recycle, resource recovery or disposal is the best practicable environmental option. It has been extensively applied in solid waste management (McDougall et al., 2001). The analysis quantifies the energy and raw materials used and solid, liquid and gaseous waste produced at each stage of the process...It can be [e]specially useful in comparing the environmental impact of a product made by recycling and the same made from virgin materials.

(More here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/life-cycle-analysis)

I suggest beginning with a visual diagram to guide your research. If you wish to include ethical and/or health analysis in this exercise, that would be wonderful! If you do not wish to write anything, please consider running through this mentally!

I will be writing up my analysis before July. If you write anything, please consider TGing it to me (Turbeaux) because I am hoping to assemble a compilation of these.

Thank you and please stay safe!

EDIT:
Here is my analysis: page=dispatch/id=1397917

12 July 2020

Greetings, citizens of Forest, and of our allied regions!

In just a few weeks, Forest will be celebrating its 15th birthday. It was in the first week of August 2005 when our original founder Devdan first established a place for us all amongst the trees. Devdan predates any of our current members, and vanished completely by the end of 2005, but early 2006 saw Errinundera and several other Forest luminaries already present here in the grounds we now call home. Errin would go on to become the region’s first WA delegate, and it wasn’t long until Ransium arrived on the scene. After struggling with identity and defense, common problems for any small founderless region, a re-founding was conducted with Errin as our new Founder, and Ransium soon became our WA delegate – a position continued to this day.

In the time since its founding, a length of time that is truly remarkable by the standards of an internet game or community, Forest has grown from a small region of a couple dozen nations to a widely-recognized and commended region of several hundred players, with a distinctive personality and a respected voice at the table of the gaming community. We are going strong, and together we can make the celebration of this, our Crystal Jubilee, a warming, welcoming, and informative occasion for our citizens and allies.

While the majority of the jubilee commemoration is being developed and will be unveiled as we reach the appropriate time, the first of our Crystal Jubilee events is here – in fact, it is starting today!

Forest’s Crystal Jubilee Flag Contest

To commemorate Forest’s 15th anniversary, we will fly a special jubilee flag on our homepage for the duration of the celebration. In accordance with our tradition, this flag will be designed via a contest, with the winner voted upon by you, our citizens!

I look forward to seeing the designs!

Verdant Haven
Forest Keeper

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: page=dispatch/id=1382149